NJ Elections: Guadagno and Murphy hit the streets for final weekend before governor's contest

The two major-party candidates for governor headed into the final weekend seeking to energize voters to turn out in next week's election, a contest to replace Gov. Chris Christie that's drawn little interest from the public. 

This is the last chance the candidates will have to directly engage with the voters who will decide their fate Tuesday. The election is expected to draw a low turnout, making it crucial for Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Democrat Phil Murphy to rally as much support as possible in the closing days of the campaign. 

Murphy, who has led by double digits in all public polling, kept a low public profile during the day Friday but had a packed weekend schedule beginning with a get-out-the-vote rally with running mate Sheila Oliver in Plainfield.

He had plans to follow that up Saturday with three more rallies, including one in Parsippany with U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-Newark. Murphy has four more rallies scheduled for Sunday and Monday, highlighted by one in Asbury Park featuring musician Jon Bon Jovi. 

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By Friday, Guadagno was already one day into a 21-county "Main Street, Not Wall Street Bus Tour" to deliver her message that New Jersey would become unaffordable under Murphy. The bus tour started in Monmouth County, where she and Murphy both live, and had plans to hit towns in Bergen and Passaic counties Friday before heading to South Jersey on Saturday.

The "Kim For NJ" coach bus pulled up mid-day Friday to a Mexican eatery, Selenita Restaurant, on Wanaque Avenue in Pompton Lakes.  Republican Assemblyman Kevin J. Rooney and former Wyckoff mayor Christopher DePhillips, who are running in the 40th Legislative District for Assembly, joined Guadagno, alongside Pompton Lakes Mayor Michael Serra. 

Murphy tax returns

Guadagno's campaign has been sending daily "countdown" to Election Day emails urging Murphy to disclose his tax returns and make them available online.

On Thursday, Murphy's campaign released two pages of his 2016 tax returns and a seven-year tax summary, showing the former Goldman Sachs executive earned $4.6 million last year.

READ MORE:Murphy reports $4.6 million in income last year, paid 32% of it in taxes

"As we stand here today, we know two things: one, he didn't work a day to earn that money; and two, we don't know how he earned that money," Guadagno said to the small crowd of business and property owners. 

Around the same time she was holding the press conference, Murphy was allowing media to review more of his tax documents for two hours at a Hilton hotel in Newark. Guadagno called it a "peek-a-boo of his tax returns." 

"That is not disclosure, at least in terms of my definition. That is not transparency. And that is not telling the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey where you have earned your keep for the last seven or eight years," Guadagno said. 

The brief look at Murphy's returns show a diverse portfolio of investments that allowed him to earn several million dollars without a day's work. He retired from Goldman Sachs a decade ago, followed by a stint as the Democratic National Committee's finance chairman and four years as the U.S. ambassador to Germany.

Even though Murphy lost more than half a million dollars on a women's soccer team he owns, Sky Blue FC, hundreds of other investments paid off. Murphy's investment portfolio includes: Amazon; Apple; Netflix; Whole Foods; McDonald's; Alkermes, the manufacturer of the opioid treatment Vivitrol, Summit-based biotechnology company Celgene; Public Service Electric & Gas; First Energy, which owns Jersey Central Power and Light; and Gannett, publisher of The Record. 

Murphy's campaign said he and his wife have committed to putting their investments in a blind trust if elected, just as Christie and his wife, who also recently retired from a lucrative career on Wall Street, have done over his two terms. 

Guadagno's tax returns dating back to 2010 are available on the governor's office website. Last year, she and her husband, retired state Appellate Division Judge Michael Guadagno, earned $306,375, according to her tax return. 

Under Guadagno's property tax plan, which would cap the school portion of a property tax bill at 5 percent of a household's income, she said Pompton Lakes residents would save $1,100 on average. 

"It's a big deal for the people of Pompton Lakes who are working two paychecks. It may not be a big deal for a multi-millionaire, like Phil Murphy," Guadagno said. 

Murphy's return showed he and his wife, Tammy, paid $203,502 in property taxes on their sprawling estate in Middletown last year. The couple paid considerably less in their homes overseas. They paid $13,195 for a home in Italy and $3,909 for a home in Germany, according to the returns. 

Murphy, meanwhile, has been challenging Guadagno to release a pension fraud investigation report by the Division of Criminal Justice, where she was once deputy director. The investigation looked into whether Guadagno, as Monmouth County sheriff in 2008, participated in pension fraud when she hired a retired law enforcement worker, who was earning a pension, to work under another title in her department and get a salary. 

"Kim Guadagno obviously has no problem in wanting to hold herself to a different standard, yet another trick she learned at Chris Christie's side for the past eight years," spokesman Derek Roseman said in a statement. "If she truly has nothing to hide, then she would have no issue in having the Attorney General release the findings of the state's criminal investigation into her conduct while sheriff."

When asked about the report, Guadagno said Murphy should "call the attorney general's office" and that he was only distracting from his lack of transparency with his tax documents. 

"I can't call the attorney general's office to get a copy of his tax returns," she said.