It's the Brian Lairn Show on WNYC.

Welcome back, everybody.

I'm Matt Katz, filling in for Brian.

I used to be a reporter here at WNYC, where I spent many years covering New Jersey politics, which is relevant given our next guest, Steve Sweeney.

Brian has been interviewing candidates on both sides of the very crowded race for New Jersey governor.

There are six major candidates on the Democratic side, three on the Republican side.

And of all of those, three of the nine

have so far been on the show. And our next interview is with one of the Democrats, Steve

Sweeney of South Jersey, who was the longest ever serving president of the state Senate.

Senate president, it's been a long time. Welcome back to WNYC. It's a good talking to you

again, Matt. New Jersey listeners, do you have questions for

Steve Sweeney, either about his record or his goals as governor. This is your chance to chat with

a candidate and get to learn more. Give us a call. 212-433 W-NYC. 212-433-962. You can also text that number. So I reported on you for many years in Trenton

when you were the most powerful legislator in the state, but you passed on running for governor.

I remember back in 2017, Phil Murphy went on to win a couple of terms. Then in 2021, you were shockingly defeated in your home district by a political neophyte with almost no campaign cash named Ed Durr, aka Ed the Trucker.

So why are you running for governor now?

And tell us what you've been up to over the last four years.

Well, Matt, you know, what people forget is I was

the only Democrat in a Republican district for a long time. My district was a 47% Democrat,

which means it was 53% Republican. And we just got caught up in a title wave. You know,

in 2017, I had the most expensive legislative race in the

history of the country. If you remember, the NJA was coming at me pretty hard. And I won by 20 points.

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