Today we're going to talk about the New Jersey governor's race. Now, listeners usually on this national politics podcast, we try to talk about explicitly national issues and events.

But last night at the Garden State's second gubernatorial debate, we heard a pretty good example of some of the ways that our national politics are trickling down to the state level and how they may

feed back. You know, there are only two governor's races in the country this year, New Jersey and

Virginia, and the way they come out are expected to be bellwethers for the 2022 congressional

elections next year. So it matters what happens in New Jersey right now.

And from philosophical disputes about systemic racism to very tangible issues like vaccine mandates

and managing this stage of the COVID pandemic, the conversations that Governor Phil Murphy,

the Democrat, and Republican challenger Jack Chittarelli, brought to the debate stage

might sound similar to how those issues are playing out in your community and state if you're somewhere else

and how they might play out in the midterms with control of Congress at stake next year.

You will also hear how something that happened on

this show recently became an issue in the debate. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily

politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, October 13th.

The New Jersey gubernatorial debate last night between Democratic Governor Phil Murphy

and Republican Challenger Jack Chittarelli, our morning edition host Michael Hill,

long a New Jersey correspondent before he came here to do this,

was one of the questioners, and he joins me now along with New Jersey editor, Nancy Solomon.

Good morning, Nancy. Good morning, Michael. Good morning, Brian. Michael set the scene for us from last

night. What's the state of the race and what did you and the other moderators perceive your job to be to serve the viewers and the voters?

Well, it seems to be a narrowing race, and that kind of framed the questions for us in, I think, the debate last night.

And, you know, some of the polls now, the moment of poll, for instance, has it within a single digit.

So it's like 9 to 13 percent with Murphy still having that kind of an edge. We spent a lot of time on the questions and really focusing on very pointed questions,

...