New Jerseyans aren’t always civil, but it’s still possible for a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican to have a rational and pleasant conversation about politics in the state. Dan Bryan is a former senior advisor to Gov. Phil Murphy and is now the owner of his own public affairs firm, and Alex Wilkes is an attorney and former executive director of America Rising PAC who advises Republican candidates in New Jersey and across the nation, including the New Jersey GOP. Dan and Alex are both experienced strategists who are currently in the room where high-level decisions are made. They will get together weekly with New Jersey Globe editor David Wildstein to discuss politics and issues.
Former Governor Richard Codey passed away on Sunday. He spent 50 years in the New Jersey Legislature. What is Codey’s legacy as a fabled New Jersey politician?
Alex Wilkes: As the somewhat recently former Shoobie here, I’ll leave the appropriate eulogizing to Jersey-lifer below. I will say that if you look throughout history, I often find that unexpected or reluctant leaders often make for some of the most interesting. I was grateful that Shlomo Schorr posted this great article about the time the former Governor went undercover to see what life was really like for the homeless in our state. Too many people in politics like the “public” part without the messy work of the “servant” end. God bless him and his family.
Dan Bryan: When I think of Governor Codey and the legacy he left behind, I think mostly about the manner in which he served as Governor. He was an old-school retail politician, treating the Office of Governor as being “Mayor of the State.” His feet stayed firmly planted on the ground, he had no air of self-importance, and he cared deeply about the state and our millions of residents. All of that translated to an seemingly-impossible 68% approval rating when he left office.
There is so much more to talk about – Governor Codey was the longest-serving Legislator in state history, he championed many mental health policies that helped countless New Jerseyans, and, famously, he took no shit from low-rent shock jock Craig Carton when his wife was attacked on-air. But when I think about Governor Codey, I’ll remember a man who practiced politics the right way for the right reasons.
I could tell aspiring politicians to take anything from Governor Codey’s legacy, it’d be his authenticity, his refusal to speak or act like a political robot. Pair that with a true devotion to helping New Jerseyans, and it’s hard to do better than Dick Codey. May he rest in peace, and may his memory be a blessing to his family.
The 222nd session of the New Jersey Legislature convened at noon yesterday, with 57 Democrats and 23 Republicans. How difficult will it be for Democrats to manage a majority that large, and how hard will it be for Republicans to remain relevant?
Dan: Well, it’s certainly a good problem to have!
The complete and total collapse of the New Jersey Republican Party has left Democrats with one of their biggest Assembly majorities in recent memory, to go along with a strong Senate majority and, of course, a new Democratic Governor. The Democratic Party is as strong in New Jersey as it has ever been.
But as always, having a “trifecta” in Trenton is the beginning of the story for New Jersey Democrats, not the end. With a new Administration comes new priorities, and new ways of doing business. There is all the possibility in the world for Speaker Coughlin, Senate President Scutari, and Governor-elect Sherrill to all accomplish their goals without stepping on each others toes, but the devil will be in the details.
Republicans *do* have the opportunity to be relevant, but I don’t know that they have the ability. They’d need to focus on the issues New Jerseyans care about and show legitimate independence from the organized crime family currently occupying the White House – two things they’ve shown no interest in for the past decade or so. It’s why they’re irrelevant in our state, and until they can forge a common-sense path forward, that won’t change.
Alex: There’s no question that it’s going to be a long session for Republicans, but the question is: does it have to be boring?
It is a fraught time for our country, but, in a superminority, I argue that it’s our imperative to make passing the incoming crazy train agenda from the Democrats as politically uncomfortable as possible.
I grew up in one of the swingiest counties of swingin’ Pennsylvania, so it was a nice reminder over the holidays to be around family and friends with the shrugging, but reasonable attitude of “you win some and you lose some.” That’s what you get from a state with Senators like John Fetterman and Dave McCormick at the helm.
That’s not our reality over here across the river. Through exploding state budgets and voting reforms, the Democrats not only kicked us out of our house, they took everything, and then they burned it down.
We always need a place for civility in politics. That’s why I go home often to Pennsylvania for a homemade pumpkin pie. But we have now been marginalized to the point of good and noble ideas not even being considered by an otherwise by the people because they cannot even hear them under the structural and political largesse of the machine.
The good news is that with an incoming governor who doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in anything other than placating the special interests who got her there, the massive Democratic majority will start to sag under the weight of its own problems. Add in the unpredictable Andy Kim progressive wing who can cause pearl clutching in all the right places and we have some real fun on our hands.
I know Republican legislators are frustrated because many of them are good people (who have actual, real, adult, non-taxpayer-funded jobs and businesses they set aside to deal with this nonsense), and they ran for office to truly make a difference for the people. To paraphrase a favorite of the left, though – Saul Alinsky – now is the time to make the Democrats live up to its own book of rules.
Mikie Sherrill is set to be sworn in as the 57th Governor of New Jersey on January 20. How do you rate her transition period so far? What’s your take on how she’s organizing her new administration?
Dan: Governor-elect Sherrill and her team are running her gubernatorial transition the same way they ran her campaign – with competence, professionalism, and determination (disclosure: I am playing a small part on the transition in an advisory capacity).
One of the many reasons Mikie and her team were so successful in 2025 was the methodical, professional manner in which they ran their campaign. They minimized mistakes and urged “ruthless competency,” executing their plans with efficiency and precision. Their transition is much of the same – a steady march of policy committees, staffing announcements, commissioner appointments, and retail hits.
It’s easy to make mistakes when things speed up around you – they’ve avoided that, and they’re building an administration that lives up to the promises they made in their campaign.
Alex: No one likes a sore loser, so I choose to ask this from a place of honesty — not animus. Can anyone give the Mikie Sherrill elevator pitch (no helicopters) that tells us what she really believes and how (or if) she is going to reform our state? When Christie (“clean up New Jersey”) and even Murphy (“stronger, fairer” / “California of the east”) came in, they had a clear set of ideas and concepts that became their brand – love it or hate it.
It was a boring transition of indecipherable word salad statements that were probably written that way by design. And that’s because who I think Mikie really is a person who is biding her time. There’s nothing glamorous about Trenton, but there is something enticing about waiting it out for 2 years to possibly be picked as a cabinet secretary and head back to D.C. along with gal pal governors like Abigail Spanberger and Gretchen Whitmer.
So here’s what she’ll do in the meantime, we’re going to get continued ambiguity, while she racks up some easy wins. Replacing the head of Motor Vehicles, for example, is a simple way to generate a nice round of “wait times reduced by 500%” headlines (because, let’s face it, who could really make it any worse than it is? Only way to go is up!). Freezing energy costs is another way she’ll try to do this in the short-term. I suspect that she was able to use the muscle of the state’s regulatory authority to force the energy companies’ hands – a freeze for a month, a freeze for 6 months – because that’s solid, first day PR-win that can carry her through until the budget since we have no media here to give it further scrutiny.
But even if that doesn’t happen, or if the rates go up, it doesn’t matter. Mikie will always have the machine that made her to protect her — even if Brian Stack has to double his turkey output this year.
That’s because only true, consistent message Mikie Sherrill has sent through her campaign, this transition (filled with insider picks), non-committal statements, her inauguration in the LITERAL SWAMP of the Meadowlands at the American Dream Mall built on graft and broken promises is that with Mikie, the machine always wins. It wins every. single. time. Not even George Washington, who crossed the Delaware risking life and limb to secure her right to take selfies at Montclair coffee shops, and our nation’s 250th birthday could prevent the machine from snatching the occasion from Trenton to a shopping mall. God save us all.
As Phil Murphy prepares to leave office after eight years as governor, what do you see as his legacy?
Dan: I could go on for a long time about the astonishing legacy Governor Phil Murphy is leaving behind (and, chances are, if you see me at any point in the next few weeks, I’ll do exactly that).
But I think it boils down to this: he was who he said he’d be, and he did what he said he’d do.
His first campaign for Governor made big, bold claims:
– Fully fund the pension payment without slashing benefits for working families
– Grow the economy by attracting new industries to our state
– Legalize marijuana
– Fully fund the school funding formula
– Free community college
– Universal Pre-K
– Enact a millionaire’s tax
– Mandated earned sick leave and earned family leave
– Boost voter participation
– Raise the minimum wage
This is just to name a few: in all, he made 52 core promises to the people of New Jersey. The length and depth of his campaign agenda was unmatched in state history.
We were told his agenda wasn’t realistic by Those Who Know Better, that Phil Murphy was misleading voters in order to get elected. Surely, once in office, he’d back off, tick a few meaningless boxes and do business the old fashioned Trenton way. Entrenched special interests and the power brokers would tamp down his rhetoric, or he’d pay for it.
But then something strange happened in Trenton: in the face of the massive inherent resistance of the status quo, Governor Murphy didn’t back down. He took big swings, not only raising the minimum wage to $15, for instance, but doing it more quickly and more inclusively than any other state, and tying the wage to the CPI moving forward.
When his millionaire’s tax was whittled down in year one, and rejected again in year two, he didn’t stop: he went for it again, in his third straight budget, astounding and frustrating many. That time, of course, he got it.
None of it was easy. Many of the Governor’s accomplishments, big and small, were done despite vehement opposition. Some of it was in good faith; there are always divergent visions for the state, and change isn’t easy. But a whole lot of it wasn’t. But rather than give into cynicism and drop items from his agenda, Governor Murphy dug in, working with those open to working together and staring down those that weren’t.
And it wasn’t always fun. Change is hard, and the status quo in New Jersey is an incredibly difficult opponent. There wasn’t a week that went by in those early years when we weren’t going twelve rounds with someone.
But every step of the way, the Governor was clear with us: he cared more about the next generation than his next election. If he needed to spend down his political capital to help people, he’d do it. If doing the right thing didn’t mean doing the popular thing, he’d do it anyway. And if taking incremental progress was far easier than enacting landmark progress, he didn’t care: he wanted big swings that actually fixed problems, and wanted the people of New Jersey to believe in state government again.
He succeeded.
In early 2020, just as his administration had mostly turned the corner, he was dealt two difficult hands: in January, he announced a diagnosis of kidney cancer.
And after having surgery to remove a malignant tumor in early March, he woke up to a text informing him that New Jersey had its first case of COVID-19.
It’s a one-two punch that would level the vast majority of us. Instead, Governor Murphy put forward one of the finest performances in public leadership in our state’s history: just thirteen days after cancer surgery, he was back at work, guiding nine million New Jerseyans and a State Administration through one of the most uncertain times in American history and keeping all of us informed through hundreds of marathon daily press briefings over the next two years. His efforts saved countless lives and drew praise from both sides of the aisle, even forging an unlikely relationship with President Trump that saw outsized federal support in the spring of 2020.
I’ll throw one more story in here, a recent one: in the last few years, we began to collectively realize the damage cell phones were doing to young people, especially in schools. As a father of four, Governor Murphy saw it first-hand. A cell phone ban wasn’t on anyone’s radar during either of his runs for office. He never promised it and he was about to leave office: surely, this was the next Governor’s problem.
But yet again, he stepped up. He listened to advocates, and he talked to experts. He slowly came around to the generational importance of banning cell phones in schools. But after he worked to reach a consensus with the legislature on a classroom ban, he doubled back: it wasn’t enough. New Jersey needed a bell-to-bell ban, one that would allow kids to focus in school, engage socially, and roll back some of the damage we’ve done to them. You know where I’m going with this: last week, he signed a full bell-to-bell cell phone ban in schools, as his final public bill signing in office.
That is how I’ll remember him: unafraid to take on big challenges on behalf of the people he represents. Of those 52 campaign promises I referenced about, he accomplished an astounding 50 of them.
None of this is to say he, or we, were perfect: he’ll be the first person to tell you that (my guess is Alex is about to be an enthusiastic second). But if you told anyone in 2017 what the Murphy Administration would accomplish for New Jersey, even his biggest supporters would find it hard to believe.
So, what of his legacy? History will be the ultimate judge, as it always is. But when I look back on the last decade of my life, I cannot be more proud to be a part of Governor Murphy’s two terms in office. Governor Murphy leaves behind a legacy of delivering for the poor and the working class, creating new industries and growing our economy, and tackling intractable problems that will benefit our state for generations to come.
Alex: But for COVID, Governor Murphy might have had a pretty uninspiring legacy like that of Jon Corzine — a wealthy, sweater vest guy who used money to muscle the county machines and special interests in his corner and, in doing so, effected no real reform for our state.
COVID both cursed and blessed this Governor. He was shutdown villain who – with the tacit consent of the do-nothing Democrats in the legislature – burned down civil liberties to keep kids out of school, small businesses closed, parks and churches shuttered, toddlers masked, and nursing homes fatally crowded in the name of the guiding principle of “we’re just not there yet.” But because he did so without the “charm” of fellow supervillain Gavin Newsom, he never even made the ill-fated short list to replace an ailing Joe Biden in the summer of 2024 with an eye towards 2028, quashing his presidential hopes.
In exchange for all of that, though, he got Joe Biden and the copious amounts of spending that came with him. Without the blue state bailout money, Murphy would have had to confront serious budget choices that he really did not have to make. He now passes that along to Mikie Sherrill, and it will be interesting to see how she handles that.
I framed his legacy through COVID because I think it could be fairly viewed as the defining moment of any person’s leadership that spanned 2020-2021 (and his, in my opinion, was atrocious), but also because his “agenda” never really had to be curtailed in serious ways as a result of the influx of cash that followed. He was able to keep his special interest friends happy, play with progressive toys like windmills (for a little bit), and he didn’t take any hits for the cuts he didn’t have to seriously make. With no dedicated funding source, his progressive follies now sit in limbo like the many “reusable” bags now preventably littering our landfills.
Oh, and he also inadvertently blew up the county line for his wife, but we’ll give that one mostly to Andy Kim.
