On election day, to the surprise of many in Trenton, the$450-million stem-cell ballot question was soundly defeated, eventhough it had been widely predicted that the initiative would passeasily. We asked real estate professionals why they thought thequestion was defeated. Nearly half (47%) attributed it to fiscalconcerns by voters. Slightly more than a third of respondents (37%)believed the voters saw it as a moral issue. A few (16%) believedthe defeat was a repudiation of Governor Corzine. CommentatorThomas Sullivan, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis' lifesciences group, believes a combination of several factors lead tothe upset. He discusses his thoughts below:

"I think there're several parts to the answer. First, a lack ofunderstanding of how the $450 million was derived. A lot of thevoters saw the gross amount and didn't realize that that would beover the course of time, a 10-year timeframe. That was notexplained very well at all. It would have been better to say thatthe tax impact for the voters would have been minimized because itwould have been spread out over time.

"Second, the $450 million included projects that were based inNew Brunswick, Newark and Camden. It would have been better on thisparticular ballot question to have it focused on one area. NewBrunswick is the acknowledged leader as far as New Jersey goesright now, as far as the cluster that's there and the core ofR&D. Concentrating only on New Brunswick probably would havebrought the ballot question down to $150 to $200 million. It endedup being too much money because there were too many geographicareas that were being included.