NJ governor: Close reelection race shows ‘there’s a lot of hurt out there’

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) said on Sunday that the unexpected close election race that he narrowly won this week indicates “there’s a lot of hurt out there.”

“Chuck, it’s quite clear there’s a lot of hurt out there. And there are a lot of kitchen tables that we need to connect more deeply with and help folks get through this period, whether they lost a loved one, a job, a small business, they’re frustrated by the ongoing pandemic or economic recovery, whatever it may be,” Murphy told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”

WATCH: @GovMurphy (D-N.J.) is “happy to have made history” as the first Democrat re-elected for gov. in his state in decades, but says his close race makes it “clear there’s a lot of hurt out there.”

“There are a lot of kitchen table issues we need to connect more deeply with.” pic.twitter.com/viWtJderFv

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 7, 2021

In a surprisingly close election race, the Associated Press on Wednesday evening called the race for Murphy who had at that time received 50.02 percent of the votes with 90 percent of the states’ precincts reporting. 

Some lawmakers had hoped that if Democrats’ social spending bill had passed in time for last week’s elections, it would have provided more fuel for the party to campaign on. 

Murphy acknowledged on Sunday, however, that there was a disconnect between how Washington spoke about the roughly $1.75 trillion social spending package compared to how it was perceived in his state.

“The debate in Washington feels – although this infrastructure bill on Friday, by the way, is a game changer and we’re the most densely populated state in America, so it’s a particular game changer for New Jersey,” Murphy said.

“But on the whole build back better debate – it feels very abstract from here. New Jersey is expanding pre-K, expanding childcare, funding public education, making housing more affordable, college more affordable, health care more affordable,” he continued. “So you look at that debate in Washington and folks feel like well ‘I wonder if this would work.’ And I’m screaming out, ‘Listen, look at New Jersey, it is working. We’re doing this stuff, and we know what works.’”