Connecticut sues over federal transgender care policy

Porch pirates beware: Bill would make stealing packages a federal crime

Meet the new commissioner of the FDNY – Lillian Bonsignore

Detainee's death at Delaney Hall prompts congressional visit to ICE facility

Head of Bridgeport's Park City Communities turns down top job at Chicago Housing Authority

Mamdani appoints a former FTC director to lead Dept. of Consumer and Worker Protection

newyork

News 12 Staff

RTCTPowerPolitics12272025BBlock230pm_2025-12-27-15-01-17

Welcome back to New Jersey Power and Politics. I'm Eric Lanz Kerner continuing our year-end show here looking at the naughty and nice list. We've already gone over the losers over the year, and now let's talk about some of the winners, and I'm joined again by, of course, Republican strategist Jeannette Hoffman and John Wisniewski, Democrat and former Assemblyman. Again, it's great to see you both. All right, let's let's dive right in, John. Who's tops on your nice list? I think it's obvious, Mikey Sherrill. She won the gubernatorial election by 500,000 votes, really just a phenomenal number. You put that in perspective, that's 500,000 more votes than Phil Murphy got 4 years ago. She blew the doors off. She's got a great opportunity now to create an administration that represents what she talked about in her campaign. And so hats off to Mikey Sherrill. And you both share the same number one. I mean, she gets the biggest present there is, right, being, being the next governor. So congratulations to her. Everyone thought this was gonna be a super tight race, and in the end she proved that it wasn't, uh, and she becomes the first Democrat female governor. You know, New Jersey we spoke to former Governor Christie Whitman about her victory as well, and she said she has a very narrow, the governor-elect has a very narrow window of opportunity here not to squander the mandate that she received on election day. Would you agree? Yes, yes, well, listen, it's not going to be easy for her. The legislature. is very largely controlled by Democrats. The assembly has a veto-proof majority, and it's not easy working with legislative leaders who've been there for a very long time. So we're going to have to see how that all plays out. Jeannette was actually to say it's not easy working with legislators. Then she realized I was sitting next to her, so she changed. I, I want to see John's opinion on that. No, I think that every new governor has this very narrow window to really set the tone and set the pace of what she wants to do. And so I think Governor Whitman's assessment is correct, and I think that you know there are blessings and curses with having a very robust democratic majority. Certainly you have the ability to get what you want done, but you also have a lot of voices. You have to contend with. Who's number 2 on your list? Number 2 on my list, well, it's a combination between James Solomon or Emily Jabor or maybe both. They both won their elections by very sizable majorities, and they are really standing out as kind of leaders in a progressive getting elected to a major New Jersey city. Is this a trend for the future? Hard to say. They both ran in multi-person. Races, so it could just be a function of having the greatest number of a small number of votes, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on. These are the races, of course, in Jersey City and Hoboken. Number 2 on your list, political consultants, and I'll tell you why. This was the most expensive governor's race in New Jersey history. $285 million was spent on both sides. And when you when you talk about super PACs as well, and it was also the sixth most expensive. race in United States history. So there's a lot of money being spent on these races and a lot of people made a lot of money. John seems to agree here. Yes, I think, I think there's a lot of political consultants that are going to have a very happy holiday season based on their billings over the last election cycle. All right, so your last go, you mentioned James Solomon and Emily Jabor. Who's next on your list? My, my final one is, uh, not my final one, but my next to final one is Assembly Speaker. Craig Coughlin. Now my former running mate, Craig and I were district mates. He's, he's a repeat, by the way. He was on your list last year too. He was absolutely, because he had some great legislative successes, but we served together in the legislature. He got elected in 2010. I served with him until 2018, but this makes him the longest serving Speaker in New Jersey history, which is phenomenal when you think about the length of our history. The next closest was a Republican Speaker, Jack Collins, who I served under. And next on your list, oh, actually, you also have Speaker Coughlin on my list for a different reason, because he is the Assembly Speaker who is now in charge of a veto-proof majority in the Assembly. They haven't had that in 50 years, and he picked up 5 seats. But really the question is going to be some of these new legislators are far more progressive than other Democrats in the legislature right now. So will he be able to keep his coalition together, or are some of these Democrats going to go off in their own direction? I really do think that. There is a divide in the Democratic Party right now and so it should be interesting to see you talked about some of those progressive mayors. I think we're going to have some pretty far left legislators that kind of got into the legislature a little bit by accident on Mikey Sherrill's coattails. I will just add this is that when you have a very large majority, it's not as easy to keep your members together as when you have a small majority. When it's small, everybody understands they have to be in it together. When it's large, people say, I can get a pass on that, can't I? Right? You have the party boss. on your list also Jeanette, I do, I do. The Democratic Party bosses, and I'm talking about, uh, Democratic Chairman Leroy Jones. I'm talking about, um, the Hudson County Party bosses and Brian Stack. I'm talking to, uh, Monmouth County, uh, Democrat Senator Vino Powell, who chaired Mikey Cheryl's campaign. They all did a phenomenal job of really getting out the vote in some of the urban centers and making sure that they took nothing for granted because remember this was supposed to be a really tight gubernatorial campaign of only a couple of points, but a few. Looked at all the big urban centers, the vote margins were huge, and we were together on election night, and I'm looking at the numbers coming in. I'm like, this does not look good for Republicans because the Democratic urban centers were huge. So I really credit the party bosses for. We're almost out of time actually, John, on your list you have the Assembly Democrats. You have 57 members, largest majority they've had since 1973. It has its blessings and it has its downsides. And your final. You're final on the list actually, you were talking about the party bosses. You also GOP Chairman George Gilmore you mentioned and Ocean County. Ocean County was the one county that really performed as well as they should have for Jack Chittarelli. Everything else, you know, kind of fell apart, but Ocean County was a really strong red county in New Jersey. Any honorable mentions for both of you? What do you think? Honorable mentions, Yeah, honorable and for the nice list. It's much easier to have honorable mentions from the naughty list, right? Or you've done a great job. I think, you know, honorable mention, I would also concur with what Jeannette said about party leadership. You know, there was a lot of concern about the. Abolishment of the line and I'd always said if you have a strong organization that doesn't really matter and what we've seen in this election is strong organizations carry the day. All right, we're going to take another quick break. When we come back here on Power and Politics, we're going to talk about what to expect in 2026. We'll be right back.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/b8793df9-584e-4721-868d-3785d7c621b4/b8793df9-584e-4721-868d-3785d7c621b4.transcribe

RTCTPowerPolitics12272025CBlock230pm

Welcome back to Power in Politics. I'm Eric Glantz Kerner joined again by Jeannette Hoffman and John Wisniewski. Uh, all right, so here we are. We're at the end of the year welcoming a new year. Let's talk about predictions for 2026. Jeannette, start with you. Well, I think, listen, we're all eyes are going to be on the Cheryl administration and the transition of power from Murphy to Cheryl, who are her cabinet appointees, uh, and what main issues she, she promised. Number one, she was going to freeze energy rates on day one. A lot of people thought she can't really do that. You can't tell. they can't raise their rates. Is she going to be able to do that? Is there going to be a big legal fight? I think there is going to be a legal fight over that, and I'm not sure she's going to be able to do what she promised. John, I would agree there's going to be a legal fight. I think she will freeze rates, but I think that the incumbent utilities in New Jersey are going to say, wait a minute, not so fast, and they're going to run to court. You know, something we've been talking about quite a bit over the past couple of weeks is the speculation that started with one lawmaker. Saying maybe there could be a sales tax hike coming up shortly, the legislature has said, well, it's not something we've considered, and the governor-elect's staff says it's absolute nonsense. Could there actually be a sales tax hike and what implications or what ramifications could there be if, well, to the point of our earlier segment which we're talking about the new governor having a limited window to set her mark on the state of New Jersey, it's not going to be done well if if there's a tax increase discussion. So I don't predict in this first year that there will be any tax increases, but I think that's going to make the budget discussion. That start with her budget address in February, a very difficult process. Yeah, I mean, listen, if there's a tax increase in lame duck or in the first part of the administration, they're all on the naughty list than the Democrats. So remember, I mean that was the biggest issue besides energy that she hammered Jack Chittarelli on that he proposed possibly raising the sales tax, which he absolutely never did. I would call that a flat out lie. So and any tax increase, any tax increase, he didn't. And it would be a real disingenuous move right now. Final question, and then we got to go. Inauguration is going to be in Newark as opposed to Trenton. Any thoughts on that? Well, I was there for the last inaugural in Trenton in Newark when Christie Todd Whitman was sworn in. It's interesting that the last woman governor of New Jersey was sworn in in Newark, and now our next one is going to be. Listen, that's where her centralized power. She's from Essex County. She lives in Montclair. Leroy Jones, the state chairman, is from Essex County. Those are her people. I think that's just kind of a nod to Essex County. Jeannette Hoffman, John Wisniewski, thank you both so much for being here. Happy holidays to you. Happy holidays. Happy holidays, and that'll do it for this week. I'm Eric Lanz Croner. On behalf of all of us here at News 12 New Jersey, we thank you for spending a little time with us every week watching Power in Politics. We wish you nothing but happiness and health in 2026.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/85181593-5b02-4848-9342-9833a2e55145/85181593-5b02-4848-9342-9833a2e55145.transcribe

Republican strategist Jeanette Hoffman and Democratic former Assemblyman John Wisniewski join the show.

More Stories

More from News 12

Power & Politics: Weighing the pros and cons of Bally’s Bronx

Power & Politics: 2026 New York state legislative session preview

Power & Politics: Cannabis controversy on Long Island; will Freeport raise taxes?

Power & Politics: Gov. Lamont on Trump’s address, recent mass shootings and Sandy Hook anniversary

Property taxes will rise for Mount Vernon residents

ICE encounter outside Patchogue deli raises questions about immigrants' rights

Ad Choices

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Privacy Manager