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“I’m staying here and we’re going to stay together and try to put this terrible crisis behind us as quickly as possible,” Murphy said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on Wednesday he would not take a position in the Biden administration if the former vice president defeated President Donald Trump in the November election.
“My job is in New Jersey and I can’t imagine, even in peacetime, I can’t imagine any other job. But certainly not under the circumstances we find ourselves in, ”Murphy said in an interview on POLITICO Playbook Live.
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Murphy told New Jersey Playbook author Matt Friedman that his decision to stay in New Jersey and likely pursue a second term in 2021 was “unequivocal, unequivocal.”
There has been speculation for most of the past year that Murphy, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany during the Obama administration, could step down as governor for a position in a new Democratic administration. The self-proclaimed “pro-growth progressive”, who previously led the Democratic National Committee’s financial efforts in the mid-2000s, is also the chairman of the Association of Democratic Governors.
Murphy, along with most of New Jersey’s top Democratic officials, endorsed Sen. Cory Booker’s presidential candidacy in the primary before lining up behind Joe Biden after the former vice president became the party’s presumptive candidate. Biden officially secured the party’s nomination on Tuesday night.
“I’m staying here and we’re going to stay together and try to put this terrible crisis behind us as quickly as possible,” Murphy said.
The first-term governor has a long-standing personal relationship with Biden, who joined Murphy on the trail while campaigning three years ago.
Murphy has developed his national profile in recent months as New Jersey has been stricken with coronavirus. Daily press conferences and a comprehensive press communications strategy have made the former Goldman Sachs executive a frequent presence on national broadcasts and the media.
About 16,000 New Jersey residents are believed to have died in the pandemic, including more than 7,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities across the state. Like neighboring New York, however, New Jersey held up better than most countries in late spring and early summer.
Much of the state’s recent success in controlling the spread of the virus has been attributed to Murphy who, after struggling to establish an identity with the people of New Jersey during his first two years in office, is now among the state’s most popular politicians.
Murphy’s approval rating, which once hovered between 40s and mid-40s, has been steadily averaging 70% throughout the worst days of the pandemic. And although it has started to see the business community push back its conservative and at times ill-defined plan to reopen, about two-thirds of the state’s residents want to keep Covid-19 restrictions in place until it does. be a vaccine or treatment, according to a July survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Still, concerns about Murphy’s handling of the health crisis have started to surface.
A recent legislative hearing into Covid-19 outbreaks in New Jersey-run long-term care facilities and veterans’ homes included scathing testimony alleging widespread failure and incompetence. Two members of the New Jersey congressional delegation, Democratic Representatives Bill Pascrell Jr. and Josh Gottheimer, have called on veterans facility CEO Matthew Schottlander to step down.
State prisons have also struggled to contain the virus, resulting in one of the highest infection rates among incarcerated populations in the United States, according to statistics compiled by The Marshall Project.
“If we had known earlier that this virus was among us – none of us, not just New Jersey – and not just long-term care, but especially long-term care, we would have stopped visiting,” Murphy said in Wednesday’s interview. , adding that the outbreaks are likely due to staff and relatives who contracted the virus in their communities. “We’re going to do a full autopsy of nut soup on long term care, in veterans homes, on how we’ve handled the whole pandemic.
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