New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is criticizing a front-runner in the race to be his successor.
Phil Murphy has spent $20 million in his primary election campaign and polls show him with a commanding lead in the Democratic primary. If he gets his party’s nomination, he says he’ll accept public matching funds that would limit his general election campaign spending to $13.8 million.
Governor Christie believes that promise is meaningless.
“It’s a complete joke and a guarantee you, take it to the bank, he falls below double digits, the third-party money will come out in droves, and he will be the person who is both asking for it and he may be the person who’s supplying it.”
New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission executive director Jeff Brindle expects there will be a lot of spending by independent groups to influence this year's governor's race.
“If you look at what happened four years ago when we had a similar election with a gubernatorial election, legislative elections, we had over $41 million that was spent by outside groups.”
Brindle is pushing for enactment of legislation that would require those groups to disclose their donors and which candidates they support.