TRENTON - New Jersey taxpayers have spoken, and they're clearly not happy.

There was little disagreement in the political world yesterday that voter concern over the state's finances and outrage over ever-rising taxes drove Tuesday's defeat of $450 million in bonds to fund stem-cell research and another measure to earmark more sales-tax revenue for property-tax reform.

"Voters have given us clear instructions," Gov. Corzine said yesterday. "They told us to resolve our alarming and pressing financial problems."

The measures' defeat represented the first time a statewide ballot question has been voted down in 17 years.

"I give the voters a lot of credit," said Ingrid Reed of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. "They said we want respect. We know we're in bad financial shape. Why are you asking us to borrow more money?"

In fact, "we're not going to approve anything to do with money."

Corzine and Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex), who led the charge to make New Jersey a leader in stem-cell research, said they were extremely disappointed by the loss.

The $450 million for research grants over 10 years was meant to piggyback on $270 million approved last year to build lab facilities, and would have made New Jersey second only to California in terms of dollars committed to luring the best scientists.

Corzine said yesterday that he was concerned how the vote might affect biomedical companies' decisions to set up shop in the Garden State.

Corzine said he still believed New Jersey residents supported stem-cell research, which advocates have touted as a pathway to curing now-incurable diseases and disorders. But he said their concern over the state's finances overrode all else on Election Day.

New Jersey already is carrying $30 billion in debt and payments on that debt account for almost 10 percent of state spending every year. The pension system is tens of billions of dollars in the hole. And Corzine has forecast a deficit of up to $3.5 billion going into the next budget year.

Corzine said the stem-cell measure would have paid for itself through economic benefits to the state, but acknowledged "we probably didn't make a strong enough case" to voters.

Agreed Codey: "What we learned is that we didn't do a good job of telling them that this will not cost them anything."

Opponents, meanwhile, did a formidable job of mounting a resistance.

Antiabortion groups, which had tried and failed in court to block the measure from appearing on the ballot, ran ads against funding experiments on embryonic stem cells, arguing they were morally repugnant.

Steve Lonegan, mayor of Bogota, in Bergen County, and state director of Americans for Prosperity, launched his own campaign against the bond measure - and both other ballot questions involving money.

Lonegan said his group spent $450,000 on the "Vote No" campaign, which used TV ads and signs and an across-the-state tour to urge voters to reject the three questions.

"We got a very simple message out: This means higher taxes. And the message worked," Lonegan said.

Roberts said the largely grassroots effort put forth by Lonegan played a role in sinking the sales-tax dedication, which would have earmarked the other half of last year's one-penny tax hike - another $700 million - to a property-tax reform fund.

Voters approved dedicating the first half of the penny last year.

Roberts had touted the measure as a way to ensure a permanent source of funding for the higher rebate checks that went out this year.

But Lonegan argued that legislators could use the money for just about anything in the name of "property tax reform."

And in a move Roberts dubbed "misleading and irresponsible," Lonegan told voters that Democrats would just increase taxes to replace the revenue stream lost by dedicating the sales-tax money to a "slush fund."

In the end, said Reed of Rutgers, the measure likely failed in part because "the level of trust among voters that people would spend the money right is really low."

Observers say even the two ballot measures that passed were affected by a fed-up electorate. A ballot question authorizing $200 million in new bonds for open-space preservation passed by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent - a lower approval rate than past open-space questions. And that was after environmentalists, anticipating an anti-tax vote, banded together in a massive campaign to bolster the chances of passage.

The fourth question, which asked voters to replace the words idiot and insane person with more politically correct language in a section of the constitution, passed with 60 percent of the electorate approving the change.

But what is even more striking, Roberts said, is that 40 percent - 503,395 people - rejected the move.

"It shows an immense amount of frustration," he said. "One would have thought that would pass by 95 percent."

The frustration didn't just play out at the state level.

An anti-tax insurgency swept all the incumbents out in Haddon Heights, where a state-mandated reassessment this year caused some homeowners' property taxes to jump up to 60 percent.

Several angry residents renounced the ruling Democrats and registered as Republicans in order to run.

"This tax thing really blew up the town," said Rickie Roberts, president of the Haddon Heights Homeowners Association. The three winning candidates were members of the association, a self-described watchdog group.

"Now we will work to fix the tax situation," said Roberts.

Though voters approved the statewide open-space bond measure, voters in Washington Township rejected a local proposal to double the amount collected for preservation efforts in the sprawling Gloucester County municipality.

"The ballot question asked people if they wanted to tax themselves. They said no," said Washington Township Mayor Paul Moriarty, a Democrat who also holds a seat in the state Assembly. "It was for a worthy cause, but nobody wants to tax themselves."

N.J. Election Summary

A glance at the 2007 elections in New Jersey

Balance of power: Democrats gained a seat in the Senate, for a 23-17 advantage, and will control the Assembly 48-32, down from 50-30.

Ballot questions: Voters rejected two of four statewide issues, including Gov. Corzine's bid to borrow $450 million for stem-cell research grants. They also turned down an effort to dedicate all money generated from last year's sales tax increase to property-tax relief. Voters approved borrowing $200 million for open-space preservation. They also approved revising language outlining when voting rights can be denied by deleting from the state constitution the phrase idiot or insane person and replacing it with the phrase person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting.

Senate races: All 40 seats were up for election. Only a few races were competitive, led by the contentious and expensive race in which incumbent Democrat Ellen Karcher lost to Republican Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck in the 12th District, representing parts of Mercer and Monmouth Counties.

Assembly races: All 80 seats were up for election. Democrat Michael Panter, of the 12th District, was the lone incumbent to lose.

Fresh faces: Retirements, resignations and primary election losses mean the next Legislature will have 16 new senators and 27 new Assembly members.

The female factor: A record number of women will be in the Legislature in January after 59 women from the two major parties contended for legislative seats. Women gained two Senate seats, making nine female senators, and picked up nine seats in the Assembly. That means more than 25 percent of the 120 seats will be held by women.

Turnout: As expected, turnout was low, and was poised to fall short of 30 percent. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, just 27 percent of the state's 4.8 million registered voters had cast ballots. In 2003, the last time the Legislature topped the ticket, 34 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

Money talks: Statewide, Democrats outspent Republicans by a 3-1 ratio.

- Associated Press