As election day 2023 occurs this week on November 7th, no major federal office holders are up for re-election this general election cycle. Since 2023 is an “odd” year, elections that are being held this season are local in nature. In New Jersey, the entirety of the state legislature is up for re-election, and while the state is a “blue state” at the federal level, the nature of state level politics is different. For the first time in decades, Republicans in the Garden State believe they have a chance to flip the state legislature in Trenton in either the house or the senate and end one party rule in New Jersey. This would be ground breaking in a state that has had Democratic control of the legislature since 2001.
Despite many notable local races occurring this year, many major media outlets remain focused on the upcoming 2024 presidential election. In the Democratic party, Joe Biden (the incumbent President) appears all but certain to earn his party’s nomination for the presidency once again. Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Robert Kennedy Jr. will be running as an independent candidate in the election, but will likely do more harm to the Republican candidate than he will to the Democratic nominee as the far-left voters of the party widely rejected him when he attempted to run as a Democrat.
In the Republican party, the former president Donald Trump is the party frontrunner in a shrinking field of candidates, enjoying a massive double digit lead. Despite this, Trump remains severely vulnerable. Many Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump, and he currently faces four criminal indictments, with several surrounding the January 6th incidents. One federal prosecutor in charge of prosecuting individuals involved in the incident has announced that he will run for Congress, and is campaigning on a platform in which he openly supports government censorship and a restriction of the first amendment.
