GOP's Christie Ousts Gov. Corzine in New Jersey

Republican Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney, was elected governor of New Jersey Tuesday, unseating one-term Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine and giving the GOP a rare major victory in a state that in recent years has been voting strongly Democratic.

Corzine, criticized by many New Jersey voters for his handling of the state's struggling economy, lost by a clear margin despite receiving strong support and a pair of late campaign visits from President Barack Obama. The election came almost exactly one year after Obama, who remains popular in the state, carried New Jersey by a 15 percentage-point margin as the Democratic presidential nominee, giving his party its fifth consecutive presidential win in the state.

The Associated Press called the race for Christie with 72 percent of precincts reporting and the Republican challenger leading Corzine by 50 percent to 44 percent. Later returns, with 98 percent reporting, showed Christie holding on to a 49 percent to 44 percent lead.

Independent Chris Daggett, a former federal and state environmental policy official under Republican administrations, had just more than 5 percent of the vote and was not the kind of factor in the outcome he was widely expected to be. He took a much lower share than had been suggested in many pre-election polls, which showed the third-party contender with double-digit percentages after he presented himself well on the stump and in debates.

The race was first and foremost a referendum on Corzine, a former Wall Street CEO who deployed his own vast financial resources to help him win two major statewide offices in New Jersey -- a Senate race in 2000 and the governor's contest in 2005 -- but has never been an overwhelmingly popular figure.

But Christie's victory is also at least a disappointment, if not a blow, to the national Democratic Party in the first major Election Day following the 2008 elections in which Obama won the White House and the Democrats significantly expanded the congressional majorities they captured in 2006. And it came on the same night as a blowout victory for governor of Virginia by Republican Bob McDonnell, a former state attorney general who easily won the open-seat race to replace term-limited Democrat Tim Kaine.

As a result of these two "off-year" turnovers, the Democrats' edge in the nation's gubernatorial seats will be reduced from 28-22 to 26-24.

Obama had put in a vigorous personal effort in an attempt to help Corzine stave off defeat. He made high-profile visits to New Jersey on Corzine's behalf late in the campaign and the governor tried to tie himself closely to Obama in part to drive up Democratic voter turnout.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was quick to portray the New Jersey outcome as a big setback for the Democrats that bodes well for a GOP comeback in 2010. "In a state that overwhelmingly voted in favor of President Obama, this stunning defeat of Corzine sends a clear message to Democrats across the country," Steele said in a statement Tuesday night. "Americans have grown sick and tired of big government and reckless spending, and this vote is a sound rejection of the far-left policies that are hurting our nation."

The contest was rated as a tossup during the campaign's closing weeks, which constituted something of a comeback for Corzine. Burdened by criticisms of his handling of the state's recession-plagued economy and persistent issues such as its high property taxes, Corzine's job approval ratings slipped deeply into negative territory and he trailed Christie in some polls at mid-year by 10 percentage points or more.

But Christie, a highly touted Republican recruit, ran a lackluster campaign that allowed Corzine to close the gap by Election Day. The well-financed Corzine staged a major media blitz that assailed Christie and focused on the Democratic incumbent's ties to Obama.

Corzine didn't rely on his Obama connections alone, though. The former top executive at Goldman Sachs also pumped more than $23 million into his re-election effort with the vast bulk of that money coming from his own deep pockets. That total is more than the combined amount spent by Christie and Daggett. Corzine is no stranger to dumping large amounts of his personal wealth on the race. He spent tens of millions of dollars in both his 2005 contest, which he won by a modest 10 points, and his 2000 Senate bid, which he won by just 3 percent.

Corzine, though, was unable to come close to matching his performance in several key counties during his victorious 2005 contest, which he won by just more than 10 points over Republican Doug Forrester. After winning the 2005 vote by 14 points in Bergen, a suburban New York City county that is the state's most populous, Corzine was ahead there by just a single point this year. Republican Christie had a 3-point margin of victory in Burlington, a southern New Jersey county where Corzine won by 6 points in 2005. Corzine won central Middlesex County by 17 points in 2005, but late in Tuesday's vote count was losing there by 3 points.

Heading into Tuesday's election, Democrats had hoped that Daggett's vigorous independent campaign would end up splitting the anti-incumbent vote and thus boosting Corzine. But Daggett, like many third-party candidates who make a dent in pre-election polls, was unable to persuade many voters to stick with him when they went to the polls even though he had virtually no chance of winning. In fact, early exit polling data indicated that the majority of independent voters broke for Christie, a trend Republicans hope they can build on a national level as they look to the 2010 elections.

"The fact that independent voters continue to peel away from the Obama-Pelosi agenda at a staggering rate, should be setting off alarm bells at Democratic headquarters in Washington," National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ken Spain said in a statement Tuesday night.