New Jersey governor says he’d turn down position in Biden administration: ‘I’m staying right here’

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) said Wednesday he would not join a Joe Biden administration should the former vice president win the White House in November. 

Murphy has said he would ordinarily not consider joining a Biden White House, but said he would “certainly” not mull a move away from the governorship during the coronavirus pandemic.

“My job is New Jersey and I can’t imagine, even in peacetime, I can’t imagine another job. But certainly not under the circumstances in which we find ourselves,” Murphy said during an interview on Politico Playbook Live. 

“I’m staying right here and we’re going to stay together and try to get this awful crisis behind us as fast as we can,” he added. 

Murphy, who was first elected in 2017 and chairs the Democratic Governors Association, indicated he intends to run for reelection in 2021. Murphy has had to grapple with rumors he might consider leaving the Garden State to join Biden, with whom he’s had a long relationship, if he wins in November. 

The New Jersey governor has seen his national profile as well as his poll numbers rise since the coronavirus pandemic began, with the Garden State emerging as one of the hardest-hit states early on before turning its outbreak around and ultimately faring better than many other areas. 

Though Murphy’s response to the pandemic has pushed his approval ratings into the 70 percent range at times, he said the state plans to do a full review of its handling of the virus. 

“We’re going to do a complete soup-to-nuts post-mortem on long-term care, on veterans homes, on the way we’ve handled the entire pandemic,” he said.