melanie zanona on the hill, thank you very much. cnn can project that new jersey governor phil murphy has been re-elected. it was narrow. he narrowly beat his republican challenger jack ciattarelli. murphy is the first democratic governor of new jersey in more than four decades to win re-election there. murphy was able to declare victory more than 24 hours after the polls closed. at a rally last night, he thanked his family and supporters noting a variety of his administration s accomplishments from his first term in office. i renew my promise to you, whether you voted for me or not, to work every single day of the next four years to keep moving us forward. forward with renewed optimism to ensure greater opportunities for all 9.3 million who call the garden state their home. this morning, president biden is facing hard questions from within his own party after this week s dismal election results for democrats, particularly in virginia. harry enten joins us with more.
you bet. new jersey governor phil murphy is the apparent winner opportunity against rusken challenging jack - - murphy confident enough to give a victory speech tonight despite holding a lead of less than one percent. by the way, still an unknown number of ballots yet to be counted. a recount probably likely in that race as well. laura ingle is reporting live from jersey city tonight on what we know. hey, laura. hey, shannon. you know, the new jersey governor, phil murphy, will apparently keep his job for a second term. that is according to the projections of the associative press as we know this race is not over. until it is officially certified. there s still more to go here, but with this projection came the celebration, and victory speech. murphy spoke to his supporters just about an hour ago here in the state to celebrate what many believe is a razor thin win. thank you for saying we need to keep moving forward on our
biden administration slipping down a slope. youngkin walked in there and said hey, i m a business guy, i want to just leave my business, i want to come and serve, sound familiar? you know? many others like that, that people are really less-resonating their message as hey, these guys are regular people want to do the people s business. that s what won for him. he came in there, he found the void, he filled it, he brought his business experience to the voters of the great state of virginia, and it prevailed. more so than anything you saw the lieutenant governor, winston sears is so exciting. so listen, this is just the beginning o the red wave. well let me just reiterate that - - the real wave, okay? this is for all. i m just really excited. i m still pitched up about the braves, shannon. i feel like he s going to have the braves hat on, deer on, we re going to come back to him right after this and he s going to be all decked out. i want to play a little bit of the mainstream media.
unfavorable view of trump and disapproved of joe biden. i want to bring this out nationally, right, and say, okay, is this just a virginia problem or something that we re seeing in other states with joe biden s approval rating dropping? and what we see in a number of state polls even outside the state of virginia, maryland, new hampshire, new jersey, all the northeast, all states that joe biden won easily, look at that, look at his popularity ratings now. 53%, new hampshire 34%, down from 53% he won in 2020. new jersey, 43%, down from 57%, part of the reason the race was so close in new jersey and why phil murphy barely pulled it off in a state that joe biden won by 16 points. the question is whether or not it will hold to next year. if we look back at virginia history, right, and say, okay, the party that wins the governorship, how often do they gain seats in the next midterm since 1977? look at that, 8 of 11 times. so, yeah, it is plausible that biden s numbers could go up. but the f
and, harry, this has been a consistent downward slide for biden s approval rating, the exit polls, and other data points there showing approval below 50%. how far down, any chance for recovery? yeah, they did show below 50%. and in a state of virginia he won by ten points. there was this whole idea among democrats, hey, we can play against donald trump and if you look at the exit poll, it turns out that both donald trump and joe biden were underwater, on approval and favorable rating. if we pull it up, what we see is joe biden s approval rating was above donald trump s favorable rating. here is the thing that is so important. if you look at the voters who dislike both joe biden and dislike donald trump, how do those voters go? they went overwhelmingly for glenn youngkin, which is the basic idea that joe biden at this particular one, near 30-point margin for glenn youngkin among those who had an