Brian Lairer on WNYC, now Matt Friedman, reporter for Politico, New Jersey, and author of the

New Jersey Politico playbook.

That's the newsletter that they send every day.

He wrote that piece that asked if New Jersey is a swing state now. Matt, welcome back to WNYC.

Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. And New Jersey listeners, is anyone listening who voted for Biden in 2020,

but Trump this year or Biden in 2020, but this

year you stayed home? Tell us your story of why. 212-433, WNYC, 212, 433, 9692. And anything else you

want to say or ask about the election results in the state and your hopes or fears for

the state of the country going forward or you be the pundit why did it turn out this way at least

in new jersey 212 433 WNYC 212 433 9692 call or text so matt har beat Trump, according to the numbers I'm seeing, by only

five points in the state. Biden had beat him by 16. Is New Jersey a swing state now?

Well, I put up swing state numbers. That much we know. Whether this is a trend or not is still hard to suss out, because it's not the first time in recent years that we've seen at especially close to result in a statewide election in New Jersey. But it's also since then reverted to form and then come back to this. I think that a lot of ways we talk about New Jersey as a swing

state, there's no doubt that Trump did amazingly well compared to any Republican in the last 30

years here. But also Trump is kind of shown to be a singular figure in a lot of ways. So will it be

like this going forward? You know, honestly, I'm pretty skeptical that it's really a swing state.

This was a year across the board, but I think it's interesting that New Jersey, I mean, every blue state virtually performed better for Trump than it did in 2020.

The difference in New Jersey, though, is that it swung even harder for Trump than most

blue states did.

So I can't pretty, you know, the one thing about elections is anyone who pretends to know

what's going to happen has no idea what they're talking about.

When Andy Kim was on just a minute ago, I don't know if you were listening, but he had an easier time of it

than the candidate at the top of the ticket. He won by nine points over his Republican opponent,

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