When Andrew Macurdy and Vincent Kearney were campaigning for the state Assembly last year, voters complained repeatedly about New Jersey’s notorious unaffordability.
The two Democrats said they empathized. Kearney’s a cop whose wife has worked as a custodian, school lunch server, and crossing guard. Macurdy’s children, ages 2 and 4, are in day care.
“It’s like having a second mortgage,” Macurdy said.
Voters weren’t clamoring for election law or campaign finance reform, Kearney said.
“They’re like, ‘Lower my taxes, fix the trains, fund my schools.’ In priority order,” he said.
In November, Macurdy and Kearney flipped Assembly seats in the 21st Legislative District that Republicans had held since 1992, part of a Democratic wave that gave Democrats a supermajority in the Assembly and a third consecutive term in control of the governor’s seat. The district includes towns in Middlesex, Morris, Somerset, and Union counties.