Curtis, earlier you told me that you were pretty, you were feeling pretty good about how the results were going to go, but it did take your campaign a little bit of time to accept those results.
AP called it, New York Times called it.
It took you guys a little bit of time to confirm it and declare victory.
I guess what was going on behind the scenes that you guys, it seemed like, were acting out of an abundance of caution.
Well, our team is cautious.
They're veterans at doing New Jersey races and they know how the process works.
So I think they were just waiting for some pockets of votes where our opponent had, the lines or the endorsement of the counties, to just make sure that the margins we saw early in the night, which were mostly from our counties, were going to hold.
So people have a lot of time to learn your last name.
Bashaw.
Not Ba-shaw, as some people have said, Bashaw.
Bash like dash, which you have done a lot of over the last, five and a half months or so.
You told me earlier, 52,000 miles put on your car while campaigning throughout the state of New Jersey.
You got those 14 "county line" endorsements, how big of a, how big of a difference do you think that made in this campaign?
I think it makes a difference.
When you get to know a county, when you get to know their leaders, when you get to know all their elected Republican committee people, the municipal chairs, they tell their friends and it goes from there.
So the work of going to each and every county pays off.
And it it's a process that I think is very useful to enable all kinds of candidates to compete.
We're glad we had those endorsements.
So, speaking of endorsements, you mentioned endorsements.
And during your victory speech, you mentioned not getting a prominent endorsement from President Donald Trump, but that didn't make I don't know how much of a difference it made in this race.
I guess, why do you think your campaign was still able to connect with Republican primary voters, who a lot of them, I'm sure, were waiting to see who the president would endorse.
I think New Jerseyan are New Jerseyans.
We're a spunky, sort of people.
We we don't like to be told what to do.
And I think, you know, we had been working on this, getting to know everyone in our state from late January.
And that endorsement just came a few weeks ago.
The ballots were printed, people's decisions were made.
And I think that they got to know me and stuck with me, knowing that the values that we share are the same as the president's.
So in November, on Election Day, you're going to be looking at a couple of Democrats.
Well, one Democrat and one Democrat running as an independent in Bob Menendez.
But also you have Andy Kim, who won his primary.
What is your message to voters who might be considering Andy Kim, might be considering Bob Menendez?
What are, what would you say to folks who are considering them but might give you a second look after, you know, getting this win, coming from Cape May?
I think people are ready for outsiders, not career politicians.
They like the idea of someone who's actually made an economy, built a business, made a payroll, getting involved in Washington.
They're tired of the same old stuff.
They're tired of the corruption, the insider ness.
And so I think that that message resonates.
I also think what we've done and the way our campaign is, is going to resonate with a lot of independents and Democrats.
It's not your grandmother's Democratic Party anymore.
It's a very radicalized party in many instances.
And I think that we're going to strike a tone that, goes up the middle of this state and attracts a lot of people to our side.
Curtis, congratulations on the win and best of luck over the next few months.
Thank you very much.