Seton Hall students gather outside of the Hilton Parsippany for Chris Christie’s Victory Party.

Seton Hall students meet Former New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman at Chris Christie’s Victory Party.

Seton Hall students meet Former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean at Chris Christie’s Victory Party.

Seton Hall students recieve text-message updates with incoming election results.

Seton Hall University College Republicans’ Chairman Gary La Spisa thanks the Seton Hall students for volunteering their time to assist Chris Christie win New Jersey’s gubernatorial election.

Seton Hall students cheer for Chris Christie while waiting for Christie’s Victory Speech.

Lieutenant Governor-elect Kim Guadango addresses the crowd of Christies supporters and introduced Governor-elect Chris Christie and his family.

Governor-elect Chris Christie addresses a crowd of his supporters and delivers his Victory Speech.

Governor-elect Chris Christie addresses a crowd of his supporters and delivers his Victory Speech”

Obama-McCain (left) and Christie-Corzine (right)

In the presidential election, New Jersey turned out 3,828,000 votes which broke 57-42% for Obama. On Tuesday, about 2,300,000 votes were cast–about two thirds of last year’s turnout, an expectable drop. Check here for the 2008 election interactive map, and here for the 2009 election interactive map.

Let’s take a look at the turnouts of Morris and Essex Counties in these two races, which I feel illustrates the difference between these two elections.

Morris is the biggest voting base of Republicans in the state, and Essex (where Seton Hall and Newark are located) is a typical urban, Democrat stronghold.

In the 2008 presidential election, Obama carried Essex handily with 240,000 votes (76% of the county). Meanwhile, McCain had a rather poor cut of the Morris County vote with 132,000 (54% of the county).

Now, let’s look at the Governor’s race. While Corzine obviously did well in Essex (67% of the county), the turnout was terrible compared to the previous year–120,000 Corzine votes, half of what Obama garnered a year before. In the meantime, Christie beat Corzine 2-to-1 in Morris (60% to 31%), bringing in three quarters of McCain’s turnout. Similar results in Monmouth County, where McCain slipped by with 51-48%. As Kim Guadagno’s home turf, she and Christie once again beat Corzine 2-to-1 and matched McCain’s numbers by around 80 percent.

Essentially, this illustrates the differing levels each candidate’s bases were motivated this election. Democrats were forced to work with an unpopular incumbent who had nowhere near the “star power” of Obama, no matter how hard he tried. Meanwhile, Christie was able to win big in conservative areas and pull in large areas of “blue suburbs,” like Middlesex County.

Furthermore, wherever Christie did the strongest (Morris, Sussex, Warren)–so did Daggett, the independent candidate. While I’m sure it wasn’t a 1:1 ratio, for the most part, Daggett pulled votes away from Christie. The Democrats knew this and shamelessly tried to exploit it. Considering this, without Daggett in the race, I believe that Christie would have easily broken 50% of the vote.

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank you for working harder than any other College Republican chapter in the state.

From the beginning of the semester I have asked a lot of you and you have come through more than I ever imagined. We, as a chapter, made 13,000 phone calls and did $1,600 worth of $50 Get Out The Vote (GOTV) shifts.

That is an unprecedented amount of work for a College Republicans chapter which happens to be located in a town that went 7,228 to 1,568 for Obama last year. The final numbers have yet to come out for the Village of South Orange, but I guarantee you that YOU made a dent in that number this year.

As Chairman, my job description is to motivate and energize… you made my job easy. I gave you a list of goals and you smashed every single one of them. I asked for 10,000 calls, I got 13,000; I asked for 2 or three kids to do paid GOTV shifts, I got 8; I could not be more thankful for that effort.

The difference in this election (as of now) is 104,000 votes. Look at it this way, you reached out to 15k of them. That’s about 14.4% which is an incredible impact for one organization.

So, once again, thank you for being the most incredible CRs in the state. Thank you for working harder than Ricky and I even imagined in our wildest dreams. Thank you for proving to everyone that Seton Hall DOES have an active group of Republicans.

Most importantly, thank you for being a KEY FORCE in the election of our next governor, Christopher J. Christie.

Sincerely,

Gary La Spisa, II

Chairman, Seton Hall College Republicans

Photographs of from last night’s Victory Party are to come.

If you notice the endorsement of the ad “Paid for and authorized by Victory 2009, a project of the NJDSC, 196 W State St. Trenton NJ.” Apparently, the NJDSC finds supporting Daggett, instead of Corzine, is a better use of their funding and resources.

“Does Chris Christie support private school vouchers? How about helping my husband get a job and health insurance?”

In my mind, I was thinking, this is exactly the kind of person who needs a victory for Chris Christie in November. The three points that this woman brought up were completely a part of Chris’s mission to fix what’s broken New Jersey: schools, jobs, and healthcare.

The first part is a no-brainer, Chris Christie supports school vouchers. This will empower parents with children in failing schools—empower them with  the choice of which school to send their child. New Jersey has the most expensive schools (in per-pupil spending) in the nation, and yet our urban schools (which, with state funding, spend more per-pupil than the average NJ school) consistently fail to give our children a proper education. It is time for reform.

New Jersey has the worst business and small business climate in the nation. Chris Christie will fix that by cutting income taxes, corporate taxes, and allowing a two-year tax holiday for any business that moves into certain urban zones as part of his Bring Our Cities Back initiative.

In terms of healthcare, New Jersey has the second highest average insurance premium cost in the nation (noticing a pattern here?), double the national average. If only we could purchase insurance across state lines, perhaps more of the uninsured would be able to purchase insurance from another state that has a fraction of the cost of the average NJ plan, which has been burdened with so many mandates.

After explaining these issues to her, she said “Well, if that’s the case, then put me down for Christie.”

People like this are counting on change in New Jersey. For the sake of the unemployed, the uninsured, and those stuck in failing schools, New Jersey needs change.

Oh, speaking of which, bailed-out banks make record profits!

Interactive map showing job growth/loss from 2005-2009. Kinda nifty (and scary)!

Rand Paul is ahead in fundraising for the Kentucky U.S. Senate primary.

Good news: On the issues, independents and Republicans see eye-to-eye in New Jersey.

Lefty talk show hosts use fabricated Rush Limbaugh quote to make him sound racist. Surprised?

Secret Service agents dish on the personalities of the presidents.

Christie vid: just a reminder how much Corzine raised taxes.

1. David Zolezzi (109 sheets)

2. Matt Gilson (62 sheets)

3. Jayson Schimmenti (54 sheets)

4. Rickey Santossuso (52 sheets)

The competition is FAR from over.  The competition for the top 15 is just beginning, only 11 people have made calls which means that there are 4 spots which haven’t even been competed for yet!

When you factor in the fact that our #10 and #11 callers have made 9 and 6 sheets, respectively, that means that 6 spots are up for grabs easily.

Come to Fahy 124 on Wednesday from 6-8 and/or Fahy 108 on Thursday from 6-9 and compete for the VIP tickets on election night.

We are so close to 10,000 calls that we can do it THIS WEEK if you come out strong this week!