The optimism at Chris Daggett’s headquarters began to die slowly as returns began to come in. The Independent candidate -- a spoiler in the New Jersey governor’s race who at one point was projected to win as much as twenty percent of the vote -- ended up only getting about six percent.
“I want to see what the turnout was among the unaffiliated voters before I can actually comment on the numbers,” said Daggett in a one-on-one interview with News 4 New York roughly, thirty minutes after he delivered his concession speech.
While New Jersey has far more voters who are registered as unaffiliated rather than as Democrats or Republicans, it has been an uphill battle for Daggett to attract voters because of his third-party candidate status.
Daggett said he called Gov. Jon Corzine and he congratulated governor-elect Chris Christie.
“We got to get behind him, it doesn’t serve our state to not get behind the winner of this election," Daggett said. "Even though I had a number of concerns about how he conducted his campaign.”
Daggett was endorsed by several newspapers including The Star-Ledger. What did his gubernatorial run teach him?
“What we found was the most important thing is you have to have money,” said Daggett. “What I fear is if you’re not independently wealthy, you might not have a chance.”
