An earthquake measuring 2.4 on the Richter Scale shook the northeast corner of New Jersey early Friday afternoon. Yet it’s the Emerson College/PIX11/The Hill poll released 24 hours earlier sent the more newsworthy shockwaves across the entire state — and beyond.

New Jersey is one of two states choosing a governor in November. Their off-year election, along with Virginia’s, is considered a bellwether for the party in the White House and — after tectonic shifts in the political landscape — the Garden State is trending in President Trump’s direction.

Two months after President Reagan took office in 1981, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Berkeley Breathed drew an installment of his comic strip, “Bloom County.” It featured a husband telling his wife, “Brace yourself, Bess,” before a loud rumble shakes their house.

“Yep,” he says. “The country just moved to the right again.”