Christie: NJ Governor Race is About Turnout

TOMS RIVER, NJ (AP)  -- Less than 36 hours before the polls open, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie asked party faithful in Republican-heavy Ocean County to vote -- and to remind their friends and neighbors to do the same.

 Christie spoke Sunday evening at the Holiday Inn in Toms River in one of his last pre-election rallies in his neck-and-neck campaign to unseat Democratic incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine.
  
"It all comes down to turnout now,'' he told an exuberant crowd of some 400 during a half-hour speech. "It comes down to who wants it more.'', who's more.''
   
His supporters chanted Christie's name and booed when he mentioned Corzine.
   
As he has done in past campaigns, Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs chairman, has spent millions of his own fortune -- more than $22 million as of Oct. 23 -- on his own campaign.
   
"Jon Corzine is running $30 million worth of TV ads trying to make you scared of what a Christie administration might look like,'' Christie said after reeling off a number of areas where some studies have shown New Jersey to be worst in the nation, including for property taxes and business climate.  "How much worse can I do?''

The crowd roared approval.

But in this stage of the campaign, Christie, who built a reputation as corruption-buster in seven years as a U.S. Attorney, is focused less on selling himself than on trying to get his supporters to the polls.
   
He asked the crowd to volunteer at his phone banks in the campaign's last two days. He planned to visit some phone banks Monday as his six-day statewide bus tour concludes.
   
Polls say it appears the race will be close between Corzine and Christie, with Independent Chris Daggett a distant third, but perhaps getting enough support to shift the outcome.
   
Meanwhile, Corzine appeared at two rallies with President Barack Obama on Sunday.
   
Christie hasn't attracted that kind of star power -- indeed, the Republicans don't have a star that large.
   
But he's been joined by figures including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the last two Republicans New Jersey has elected governor.
   
Over the weekend, he got campaign help from Steve Lonegan, the more conservative candidate Christie defeated in the primary in June. In Toms River, he stood with U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a popular Republican who represents Ocean County.