How party slogans and ballot draws defined many of New Jersey's primary contests

In New Jersey’s most closely watched primaries, like the expensive Democratic contests for the 7th and 12th congressional districts, voters had lots of ways to learn about the candidates running: through mailers, TV ads, campaign events, and fairly thorough media coverage.

But what about in the state’s more obscure contests, ones where no candidates were spending huge amounts of money and interested reporters were hard to come by? What were the tens of thousands of voters in those races basing their votes on?

The winners of three such contests – Justin Murphy for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination, Rosie Pino for Republicans in the 9th district, and Zack Mullock for Democrats in the 2nd district – all had plenty of compelling arguments to make to voters about why they’d be the best choice in their races. Pino and Mullock in particular put together solid campaign efforts, and both have real shots at winning upset victories in November.

But in such a low-information environment, it’s clear that all three races were also affected by what voters saw on their physical ballots. The county line may be dead, but the slogans awarded by party endorsements still clearly swayed many voters; so too did the completely arbitrary factor of ballot order, which seemingly steered many voters towards the candidate who was lucky enough to snag the first slot on the ballot.


https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/how-party-slogans-and-ballot-draws-defined-many-of-new-jerseys-primary-contests/