>> Tonight on "NJ Spotlight News" the results are in from the state primary and the legislative match ups are now set.

Five months and counting until the balance of power is decided in Trenton.

>> The Republicans think they be able to steal again from the Democrats.

>> Plus, coming out swinging.

>> A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog.

Is not a leader.

>> Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie takes his first shots at the former president, trying to carve his own path to the presidency.

Also, a code red air-quality alert is issued across the state and smoke from Canadian wildfires smothers the East Coast.

>> We usually get smoke influx from hundreds or maybe even thousands of miles away.

>> And, battle for pride after their church LGBTQ+ lag is set ablaze.

>> It was the most violent act of vandalism the flag has experience.

>> A community comes together in the wake of what the human rights campaign is calling a national state of emergency.

"NJ Spotlight News" begins now.

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New Jersey Realtors, the voice for real estate in New Jersey.

More information is online at NJrealtor.com.

And By the PSEG foundation.

♪ >> From NJPBS, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Briana Vannozzi.

Briana: Good evening, and thanks for joining us this Wednesday night.

The ballots are counted, the results are in, and it was a good night for incumbents in the states Tuesday primary election.

All 120 legislative seats were on the ballot with a handful of bitterly contested races on the Republican side.

As the GOP prepares for an uphill battle to take control of one or both houses of the legislature this fall.

Senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has a look at the election outcomes.

>> Just 8% of New Jersey's registered voters cast ballots and predictably almost every incumbent won the race, including the Republican Senator better known as Ed the trucker.

He handily defeated challenger Beth Sawyer in legislative district 3, 1 of very few feisty contests.

>> Brand is everything.

He is a trucker, oh, I trust him.

>> The Republican Senator says he can rely on branding for the win.

Party support like the Evan County line on the ballot also wielded significant political weight.

Essex County has redrawn the 27th district with two long serving veterans against each other.

Gill lost both the county line and the race, says a Democratic Party strategist.

>> Certainly the one up in Essex County, it seems that County endorsed candidates in most of the large counties prevailed.

>> In a postmortem, the monitor says voters simply did not turn out.

>> I think maybe the chief reason is there are still few races that are contested.

Almost everyone was running unopposed.

>> District 26, where the Republican Senator beat back a challenge who tried to brand the incumbent as eight woke Republican.

He chaired Donald Trump's jersey campaign and beat him by about 20 points, another case of branding.

>> At the end of the day, he was not able to make the case to dump an entire legislative ticket, a well-established legislative ticket.

>> One race didn't buck trends a bit.

Vying for a wide open seat in District four, Nick to Silvio won in Gloucester County which holes the lion share of the districts Republican voters.

But his challenger drew the first column on the ballot by sheer luck.

The globes Joey Fox explains how that helped the winter.

>> If a voter wasn't paying close attention to the primary, he generally probably would not know.

>> Republicans will get another chance to make inroads in Trenton where Democrats control both Senate and assembly.

Rasmussen does predict a shift.

>> We are seeing the Republican minorities get larger as they head north to south and more North West, they are leading Democrats in that blue strip between Philadelphia and New York.

>> He expects pocketbook issues and culture wars could drive the rhetoric.

He says Republicans need to win swing districts where the Maga playbook may not work.

>> We have to appeal to moderate Democrats and undecided voters.

>> I don't think it is hopeless, especially in a suburban state like New Jersey.

>> All 120 legislative seats will be on the ballot in November.

Briana: For deeper look at last nights primary election, I'm joined by Colleen O'Day.

Good to see you.

What gives with the turnout?

Talk about a lackluster election.

Colleen: So far from what we are seeing it looks like no more than half a million people turned out, that's maybe 13% of the registered Democrats and Republicans, not counting unaffiliated voters who tend to not show up because they don't want to become a Democrat or Republican.

That's about what it was 10 or 12 years ago we last had a state Senate at the top the list.

This should have been at year when people came out because it was redistricting year.

The districts changed.

This is a time formal people to come out, and we just didn't see that.

Briana: How does this set us up for the general election in November?

Colleen: We will be looking at typically a lot of different districts.

Fourth district is one we will continue to look at because that's where the Republicans think they might be able to steal again from the Democrats.

It is down in South Jersey which has been trending red.

Then to the 11th in Monmouth County and to the 16th in Somerset Harding County.

They have a very close Democrat-Republican registrations.

Those are two places where Republicans think they can pick up seats.

So those will be the focus, I think.

Briana: Those are the races to watch.

How does this change the makeup of the legislature?

It has been tough to keep up with all of the turnover and certainly the face of it still seems the same.

Colleen: Unfortunately we will be losing Senator Gill, a black woman in the 34th district.

She lost, and you will be losing a woman down in the third District because Beth Sawyer decided to run against her opponent.

It looks like we will have fewer women in the legislature than we did at the start of this year, and we may have a less diverse legislature as well.

Your losing people like a Muslim woman.

Briana: Who is leaving because of what she said were hate attacks on her character.

What is a fix for this?

I know you've been talking to policymakers and others about the situation we are in with just general malaise about the election.

Colleen: A couple of things people .2, one is an open primary.

Several states have that.

In that case, unaffiliated voters could come out and vote for whoever they wanted, a Democrat or Republican.

They wouldn't have to become a member of that party.

Right now we've got 2.5 million unaffiliated voters who just want to show up at the primaries.

So that could help.

Another thing people talk about is rank-choice voting.

That might give people more of a thought that they have an actual say in the process.

Those are two things that might be considered.

Briana: All right, lawmakers, listen up.

Colleen O'Day, thank you so much.

While voters were casting their primary ballots across the state, former Governor Chris Christie was in New Hampshire Tuesday night, kicking off his second bid for the White House.

Using his familiar town hall style format to reintroduce himself to the public as the guy to take down Former President Donald Trump.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz was there.

>> A guy from New Jersey comes up to New Hampshire, we've got to remind you about what you are going to get tonight.

You're going to get some straight talk from New Jersey.

David: Chris Christie entered the auditorium to Bruce Springsteen's "no surrender."

Promising to tell it like it is about you know who.

>> A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog.

Is not a leader.

Let me be clear.

In case I have not been already.

The person I am talking about, who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, and who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong, but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right, is Donald Trump.

David: The former governor spoke for more than two hours, no notes, and took questions from an audience of certainly friendly spectators.

He joked about forgiving voters who rejected him in 2016, shared fresh anecdotes about his younger life in New Jersey, but always returned to the main target.

>> I'm going to build the greatest, most wonderful wall across the border with Mexico and they are going to pay for it.

I knew as someone who has governed that that was complete bull.

People are not going to believe that, we are safe.

But guess what?

You got no excuse now.

David: In case it wasn't clear from the persistent bashing and mocking, Chris Christie strategy was to convince voters that he is the most viable alternative to the Former President.

Did he hit the mark?

A former U.S. Senate candidate.

>> He said Trump 187 times.

>> He wasn't afraid of saying it.

It's going to be fierce.

But look, I think the American people are smart.

We love hearing both sides of the story and I think the American people will see Governor Christie the superstar he is.

David: Katherine Johnson exit a habit of seeing all the primary candidates in person.

She is a Democrat who backed Chris Christie in 2016.

She is back in 2023 and says she likes what she is hearing from him, especially about Trump.

>> I was disappointed when Governor Christie endorsed Donald Trump and 2016, I have to say.

What I have enough respect for him to come back to listen to him again.

And after hearing what he had to say tonight, I am leaning towards volunteering to help him spread that message that Donald Trump cannot be given another four years in office.

I loathe that man.

Could I be any more subtle than that?

>> That is a political science professor's dream.

There was one lane to the Republican nomination, and he is in front of it.

And if you want to win, you'd better go right through him.

David: Chris Christie will lend his flag in New Hampshire, from which she plans to sin bombs to Donald Trump, hoping to produce enough votes to make it more than just a fun night out for political junkies.

Briana: Make sure you tune into Chat Box with David Cruise.

This week he is in front of a live studio audience, featuring interviews with former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman about the forward polity, civility in politics, and the GOP candidates in the 2024 presidential race.

Vincent or Cory Booker joins David to talk about his 25 years in politics.

That's Thursday night at 6:30 on the NJ news YouTube channel.

Harmful wildfire smoke has tinted the skies across the state in some areas, it is a rare neon orange.

For the second day, New Jersey is engulfed in the haze, carried by air currents from massive wild buyers hundreds of miles away in Canada.

State environmental officials issued a code red for air quality, about 98 million people in 18 states from New Hampshire to South Carolina are under air quality alerts from the smoke.

Public health authorities are urging people to stay inside with windows closed, especially young, elderly, and anyone with a heart or lung condition.

The State Department of environmental protection expects the smoke to linger and poor air quality to persist at least through Thursday.

Many schools have canceled outdoor activities, and earlier today, the smoke force the FAA to order a ground delay at Newark Airport due to visibility concerns.

NEMO, a wildfire burning in Ocean County, New Jersey, is adding to the issue.

It has spread to more than 70 acres, but flames are now 70% contained.

Only 15 nearby structures remain in danger.

Greg Bell, a wildfire researcher said this year's active fire season stems from a dry winter.

>> We know we had kind of a record low lack of snow in our region, as did a lot of the northeast, as did Canada.

The lack of snow and the current dryness and warmer temperatures have made the fire season start early.

Briana: After years of debate, the state has adopted a long-awaited rule limiting construction in flood prone areas.

The new guidelines take effect this summer and control where development can be built based on the threat of inland flooding , using updated maps.

As Ted reports, it comes after clashes between business and environmental groups.

>> It will protect lives.

It will save communities.

>> Environmental groups are applauding the new flood rules for inland areas after years of floods.

The state is reclassifying how it calculates rainfall and nearly doubling the size of floodplains and parts of New Jersey.

Jennifer Coffey is Executive Director of the Association of New Jersey's Environmental Commissions.

>> Currently we use data from 1899, so 20 years before women got the right to vote, to 1999.

We are then more accurately able to delineate our floodplains and to manage for stormwater.

>> They're using stormwater or rainfall amounts that were recorded in 1989, and his storms got more intense and more precipitation, nothing was done to regulate stormwater regulation.

>> This mare saw his borough received devastating flooding when remnants of Ida came through years ago.

He gave input on the rules, hoping that will protect other communities, if not his own.

>> The new rules are good, but they are probably a little too late to say parts of my town.

They are not going to anything to lower stormwater levels, and that is troubling to me.

They said to me to much that we are on our own.

>> More than 200 homeowners have received buyouts over the last 20 plus years in about 10 more have used private funds to elevate their homes.

The one who wants to build a new home in a floodplain will have to follow strict guidelines when the rules are adopted in early July.

>> People are not trapped inside, the water can move freely.

We won't be able to have bedrooms are livable space on the first floor.

You can have a garage, a rec room, you can have a pool table, you can have storage.

>> The rules were influenced by two Cornell studies reviewed and published by the DEP.

They find that stream precipitation has already increased 2.5 percent since 1999 and will likely go up another 20% over the next 80 years.

The New Jersey Sierra Club director says more severe storms when you cannot rely on historical rainfall totals.

>> Climate change impacts continue to surprise us, and not in a good way.

We need to be as protective as we can be because this is about people.

>> Governor Murphy says as a national model for climate adaptation and mitigation, we can no longer afford to depend on 20th-century data to meet 21st century challenges.

The rules formation and upcoming adoption testify to our commitment to rely on the most up-to-date science and robust stakeholder engagement to inform our most crucial policy decisions.

These rules won't apply to any development projects that have already begun.

A late change to the rules has grandfathered in these projects after a push from the business community.

>> It means a difference of whether your project has to start over from scratch and go back and redesign and get all new permits.

Hopefully it is still economically viable to do that.

>> The new rules will take effect the first week of July when the governor adds him to the New Jersey register.

Briana: In our spotlight on business report, a top lawmaker's recent proposal two/property taxes of the states seniors appears dead in the water before the bill even gets a hearing this week.

The Murphy administration says it has issues with the plan put forward by the assembly speaker.

It is called stay NJ and would give senior residents up to $10,000 in direct property tax relief credits each year starting in 2025.

Governor Murphy is concerned about the cost, well above a billion dollars annually, and the fact that it will give the wealthiest seniors about four times the amount of money than those with lower income, according to the Treasury Department.

The administration says the proposal also leaves out renters.

The bill is slated for hearing in the legislature tomorrow.

On Wall Street, here is how the markets closed today.

>> Support for the business report provided by Junior achievement of New Jersey, to explore, advance their career paths for a brighter future.

Briana: An historic announce for the LGBTQ+ community, just days into pride month.

Human rights campaign is declaring a national state of emergency LGBTQ people in the U.S.

It is the first declaration of its kind in the roughly 40 years the organization has existed, citing an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ laws.

While other tax on the community have come in the form of vandalism or assault, in Sussex County, the burning of a pride flag ignited activism among locals who launched the areas first ever advocacy group.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis reports.

>> We had two incidents where the flag in front of the church, the pride flag was burned.

Joanna: The pride flag was burned in front of the United Methodist church after being trashed behind a dumpster about segments earlier.

It was the burning that sparked fear at the hearts of the church's LGBTQ members.

>> It was burned right up the flagpole and was on the ground.

We took it in and showed the pastor, and everyone that day was just so concerned and outraged.

Joanna: Sue channeled her feelings into advocacy.

>> It was the most violent act of vandalism that the flag has experienced.

The sadness of it made us want to actually jump in and get this PFLAG chapter off the ground.

Joanna: It's the longest running national organization dedicating to supporting LGBTQ members and their families.

Todd Gillespie described it as -- >> A very conservative county, so it is hard for people to know that there are other like-minded individuals around, and also that there are folks that can help provide information and support for them.

So again, the importance of having the flag flying as a visible symbol, and it is important to have PFLAG Here as a visible support.

Joanna: PFLAG Meets openly to discuss issues.

>> We are here to give support to family and friends of people who are in the LGBT community.

There are people who have family members who are just coming out as gay or transgender, or however they identify.

And they have questions, they want to know what is going on.

It is a wonderful sign when they do show up because it means I want to try.

Joanna: But the meeting comes at a time when peers over being LGBTQ are at a fever pitch.

A human rights campaign Clara national state of emergency or the first time in his four decade existence, saying the multiplying threats are not just perceived, they are real, tangible, and dangerous.

In many cases, they are resulting in violence against LGBTQ+ people.

That's why the pastor wants the community to know his church welcomes everyone to their monthly PFLAG Meetings.

>> We are here for all people.

All means all.

We are delighted we are able to host events like this for all people, that they will feel welcomed here, that they will feel that this is a place that lives out its faith in a real and practical way.

Joanna: And where one flag burned, another flag now waves proudly in the town center, a result of this group's latest advocacy efforts.

>> We were able to get it passed, the ordinance, so right now, this week, there is a rainbow flag in start-up flying at the municipal building.

And we feel like that is a step into progress.

Joanna: One step in a very long race for acceptance.

Briana: That's going to do it for us tonight.

A reminder to download the "NJ Spotlight News" podcast so you can listen anytime.

I am Briana Vannozzi, for the entire news team, thanks for being with us.

Have a great evening, and we will see you tomorrow.

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