“You could not envision a day when Norcross wasn’t running the state essentially,” Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers University professor who studies New Jersey government, said of that period. “That he’s now under indictment, it’s stunning.”
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Julia Sass Rubin
Prof. Julia Sass Rubin: Advocate for Democracy
“My passionate fight for a better democratic process of having our voices heard can be traced to initiatives by the Christie administration to slash funding for public education,” Julia Sass Rubin says.
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“They don’t work, they become exorbitantly expensive, they hurt public schools and they lead to discrimination. The real question is: Why would you promote this bill?” Rubin said.
Primary results suggest absence of ‘party line’ made a difference
“It’s early as the votes are still being counted but it certainly looks like not having a county line shakes things up, especially in the less high-profile races where the county line matters the most,” said Julia Sass Rubin
NJ primary election night results 2024 | NJ Decides
With more mail-in ballots left to count, it’s still too early to tell what impact the suspension of the party line may have had on Democratic candidates.
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“Most political actors and donors are waiting to see how this issue plays out over the next few years before doing anything that may upset the county party organizations,” Sass Rubin said.
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With more mail-in ballots left to count, it’s still too early to tell what impact the suspension of the party line may have had on Democratic candidates.
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Rubin says Kim benefitted from good timing — he was the right candidate at the right political moment. “He definitely had the right framing for people to believe that he is a reformer, and he was willing to take that risk and go up against the system.”
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That design conferred an extreme advantage: Rutgers professor Julia Sass Rubin concluded that between 2002 and 2022, candidates on the county line enjoyed an average boost of 38 points.
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“One of the impacts is that more people will get into primaries to run,” said Rubin. “But you’re not seeing that in this cycle because the decision came after the cutoff to file to run this cycle.”