Don’t look now, but New Jersey may have the closest race for governor on the ballot anywhere this November. To dig into this race, Steve Kornacki was kind enough to lend the Decision Desk HQ Podcast his Garden State expertise. Kornacki is NBC News’s Chief Data Analyst and a national political correspondent, but he actually got his start in political journalism covering New Jersey!

We examined where the race stands between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli, then got into a map-rich discussion of recent electoral trends in New Jersey. The state took a big swing to the right in the 2024 presidential race, especially in denser, more ethnically and racially diverse parts of North Jersey. How much Ciattarelli can build on those shifts will help determine just how close this race is — and whether he can pull off an upset in less than two weeks.

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