Chris Christie

Independent Christopher Daggett – whose poll numbers have dropped a bit from the peak a couple weeks ago – does not want to even entertain the talk of not winning tonight until the votes are counted.

“I don’t know what people are thinking out there. I can tell you this: there are an awful lot of undecided people out there.  Even at 3:00 in the afternoon, people who have not voted yet are at work struggling between what they really want to do and they know is the right thing to do, but have been led to believe they should use their vote against something rather than for something,” he said.

Daggett started the morning in Metro Park in Edison, went home to Basking Ridge to vote, did an interview on MSNBC and campaigned during the lunch hour in Fort Lee.  His campaign will gather later tonight back at the Dolce Basking Ridge Hotel.  

“I would say the really encouraging thing for me in this campaign… is the number of people who told me they weren’t going to vote at all until I got into the race, and they are going to vote now because I’m in it,” he said.

NEWARK - Overall turnout in New Jersey's largest city is hovering near 30% of where it was last year when Barack Obama ultimately racked over 77,112 votes, according to Democratic Party sources on the ground.

That is below the goal of 50% the Corzine campaign wants in Newark, where incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine won 39,573 votes in 2005.

A South Ward source says operations are "humming, not buzzing."

The Democratic incumbent's targeted Obama allies - so-called "surge voters" - are going to the polls, however, the response by regular registered voters in other South Ward districts is light so far, says the source.

Menendez addresses South Jersey labor this morning.

CHERRY HILL - U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken) campaigns in Camden County today for incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine.

"The eyes of the nation are on New Jersey," cries the senator at this labor rally behind Camden County Democratic Committee headquarters.

He forges the connection between GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie and the man for whom Christie fundraised in the 2000 election before landing the job as U.S. Attorney as a returned favor from Bush.

"Are you going to vote for a Bush pioneer who will try to implement the same policies that led us into the worst economy since the Great Depression?" asks Menendez to scattered boos.

Corzine attends rally in Cherry Hill this morning.

CHERRY HILL - Gov. Jon Corzine jumps onto a stage in front of hundreds of union workers in the parking lot behind Camden County Democratic Party headquarters.

"You must send a message that the labor movement is alive and well," Corzine yells. "Let's win tonight. We are ten hours and ten minutes away. If we get out the vote, we win this election. I ain't gonna lay off 10,000-20,000 public employees. We're gonna build power plants and get our union brothers back to work. The only thing that counts is bottom up."

The speech is shouted out to the throng of men and women stretched out in front of the stage.

"We're gonna win this because of you," yells Corzine to a roar of approval before falling into the embrace of Donald Norcross, the man who helped build this vaunted South Jersey labor organization.

MENDHAM – Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie showed up to  his neighborhood’s fire house to vote today just past 7am.

Christie, accompanied by his wife and four children, walked past a line of about 20 reporters and cameramen to cast his ballot before addressing the scrum right outside the polling place.

“We feel good about the message we’ve given to New Jersey.  Today is a day for change,” said Chrstie.

The Republican said he felt “very confident” about his chances.  He acknowledged the possibility that Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine could be reelected, but said that anti-Corzine voters know that independent Chris Daggett “is never going to be elected governor” and will instead vote for him.  

“If for some reason I’m wrong and it doesn’t turn out that way, then tomorrow is time to find a job.  One way or the other, tomorrow will be different. We’re ready either way, but we’re very confident that tomorrow I’m going to be meeting with a group of folks to start a new government,” he said.

Corzine enters IBEW Local 269 tonight in Lawrenceville.

LAWRENCEVILLE - Gov. Jon Corzine embraced labor here at IBEW Local 269 just before completing his day of campaigning on the night before Election Day.

"Get out there and vote," Corzine roared to a room packed with men who claim membership in this electrical workers union numbering 1,200 strong from around Central Jersey.

"Everything is what happens, not what people speculate," he told PolitickerNJ.com moments later when asked about his trust in the strength of the Democratic Party machine. "We think we have the better operation, and it's up to people to execute."

Asked why the voters of New Jersey should give him another four years, Corzine said, "I'm the best guy to get us out of this recession on the issues that matter: education, healthcare, partnership with the president; I'm in a much better position on every front, not for giving tax cuts to people making over $400,000 a year."

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton), Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-South Brunswick), and Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo (D-Hamilton) were in the room.

LIVINGSTON -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie returned to the town he grew up in to rally the Republican faithful one last time before polls open tomorrow morning.

Addressing a crowd of about 200 in an ornate catering hall four doors down from his childhood home, Christie gave a variation of the stump speech he’s given countless  times across the state.  But he peppered it with references to his home town and the fact that he had known some in the audience for decades.”

“Thee foundation was laid here. Everything that has happened up ‘til now, everything that will happen tomorrow night and everything that will happen the years after – all of that was laid right here in Livingston, this wonderful place where I grew up,” said Christie.  “…I don’t know whether any of us could have possibly imagined that a day like today could actually come for one of us.  But here it is, and like it or not, it’s me,” said Christie.  

Christie also explicitly hit Gov. Jon Corzine on the outsider status that his campaign has hinted at for months.

“Is there any way in hell we’re going to let a guy from Illinois beat a guy from Livingston tonight?” he said.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken)

A robocall from U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken) went out over the weekend targeting pockets of New Jersey's 500,000 registered voters who count themselves among the Latino population: Newark's North Ward, Elizabeth, Union City.

A second call will go out tonight, one in English and one in Spanish, broadening Menendez's reach into a combination of Latino and registered Democratic voters.

A third will go out tomorrow on Election Day.

"The senator has been very much engaged in the day-to-day operations of the Corzine campaign," said spokesman Mike Soliman. "He has been on the phone with the governor constantly and has attended events on behalf of the governor, both with him and as a surrogate, and he is looking forward to a victory with Jon Corzine tomorrow."

Menendez never headlined the kind of big tent Jersey City rally for Corzine in the closing days of the campaign that some party members say the governor needed to shore up a beleaguered - and gun-shy, following the arrests this past summer of numerous political operatives - lower Hudson County.

Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), left, and Passaic Mayor Alex Blanco

Fighting for re-election in the 36th District, Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic) said an email blast today by a constiuent urging Orthodoz Jews to vote against Gov. Jon Corzine is not representative of the community's view of the incumbent Democratic Party governor.

"(Republican) Allen Shwartz's endorsement of Chris Christie is kind of like Richard Nixon endorsing the Republican candidate," said Schaer. "Our community is not in lockstep on the governor's race. Some rabbis are backing Christie, others are supporting Corzine. As a member of the Orthodoz Jewish community I've certainly made my overtures on behalf of the governor."

Shwartz in his email panned Corzine, in part using the governor's linkage to President Barack Obama as an argument against supporting the incumbent.

"Jon Corzine’s most visible proponent for the past month has been none other than President Barack Obama," Schwartz wrote on Passaic Today. "One doesn’t have to travel for long through Passaic, Lakewood, or Teaneck to see the signs of President Obama and Governor Corzine campaigning together, arm-in-arm.

If you don't vote, you are leaving the choice of who becomes our next governor to someone else.