Dick Codey is taking nothing for granted. “I’m sitting here calling independents every night,” he says. Codey, seeking his 11th term in the New Jersey state Senate, is one of at least six Democrats the statewide Republican Party is targeting for ouster from the Senate next month.
For Republicans, the goal is nothing less than total domination of Trenton. That means not just retaining the governorship, but seizing control of both houses of the Legislature. In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 705,000, the GOP wields a mighty weapon in that quest: The man at the top of the ballot, Governor Chris Christie.
Christie’s own reelection over Democratic challenger Barbara Buono is considered a foregone conclusion. But the size of his presumed landslide and the extent to which his coattails will affect the Legislative races—every seat is in play—remain unknowns in a campaign the entire nation will be watching.
Since Superstorm Sandy ravaged New Jersey last October, Christie, 51, has become a political force of nature. He dominates news coverage—whether he’s handing out federal funds to repair storm damage, tussling with political opponents or schmoozing with late-night TV talk hosts.
“Christie didn’t have an impact in the 2011 races,” says Codey, “but that was before Sandy.”
As popular as Christie is—a Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press Poll in mid-August found 56 percent of potential voters backing Christie, compared to 36 percent for Buono—the Governor faces an intriguing challenge that requires a delicate balancing act. And delicacy has never been a Christie attribute.
Contrasting their man with the gridlock in Washington, Christie’s campaign wants to constantly remind voters of his knack for getting things done in Trenton with a Democratic Legislature. There will be no coattails, analysts say, unless Christie puts on his best pinstriped Republican suit, and stops saying nice things about Democrats and starts building a case for running them out of Trenton. Democrats now control the Senate 24-16 and the Assembly 48-32.
GOP majorities in the two houses would help Christie advance his second-term agenda. Perhaps more important, a GOP sweep would significantly boost his national stature within the party.
The last set of extra long coattails belonged to Republican Thomas H. Kean Sr., who in 1985 scored a 40-point re-election victory for governor over former Essex County Executive Peter Shapiro, flipping 14 seats in the 80-member Assembly and leaving Republicans in control 50-30. (Senators weren’t on the ballot that year.)
But there was a difference. “My landslide developed over time,” Kean says. “He’s had a landslide from day one.”
Christie’s popularity has many Democratic incumbents biting their nails, as Buono struggles to narrow the gap by appealing to core party voters.
“I, like many of my colleagues, am obviously concerned about the down-ballot effect,” says Democratic Assemblyman Troy Singleton of Palmyra, whose Burlington County district is targeted by Republicans. “We have to be aggressive in our campaign and separate the legislative campaign from the gubernatorial campaign.”
Singleton’s South Jersey turf turned redder in the re-districting of 2011, when one blue collar Democratic town was swapped out for a Republican-leaning suburb. The change substantially shrank the margin of victory for that year’s Democratic Assembly ticket. This year, Singleton and his running mate, veteran Assemblyman Herb Conaway, also have the Christie factor and a second set of coattails to worry about: The incumbent state senator seeking reelection in the district is Diane Allen, a popular Republican.
“Governors’ coattails have affected legislative races,” affirms Bruce Caswell, chairman of the political science and economics department at Rowan University in Glassboro. “But the question is, how big does the margin have to be?”
Nicholas Chiaravalloti, executive director of the Guarini Institute for Government and Leadership at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City and a former state director for U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, says down-ballot candidates shouldn’t fret until the top of the ticket builds a 20 to 25 point margin. “That’s when you start to look at coattails. That’s a significant spread, especially in a Democratic state.”
“If Christie decides to go to work with hammer and tongs for his legislative candidates, it could make a difference,” says Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. But generally, he says, “Christie is only good for Christie.”
Rolling up his sleeves for fellow GOP candidates is what former Governor Kean did when it became apparent after Labor Day that his own reelection was secure. “It’s something you have to work at,” Kean says. “It’s a question whether your campaign is geared toward the targeted districts.”
In the early going, Christie showed no signs of stumping for his fellow Republicans. Instead, there were serial events to trumpet endorsements from elected Democrats—nearly 50 before Labor Day. His message was one of bi-partisanship. At a stop in the Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, with two prominent Democrats—Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and Sheriff Armando Fontoura—in tow, Christie declared, “You look at what’s happening down in Congress. Republicans and Democrats won’t even speak to each other…. They are worried more about politics than they are worried about people. In New Jersey we do it in a totally different way… I work with a Democratic Legislature to get things done.”
Given that rhetoric, Steve DeMicco, a partner in Message & Media, a Democratic campaign-consulting firm in New Brunswick, says, “[Christie] would have to strategically shift his message to go after Democrats in the Legislature.”
Michael DuHaime, Christie’s chief political strategist, says if or when Christie might change his tune is something the campaign would prefer to keep to itself. “We are talking about having been able to get things done [with Democrats], but at the same time, a lot of things haven’t been done.” DuHaime said in a pre-Labor Day conversation. “It’s premature to say what the Governor’s schedule might be in October.”
Thomas H. Kean Jr., the Senate Republican leader from Westfield and the former governor’s son, is counting on help from Christie. Republicans have to win five new seats in the Senate to take control, and nine in the Assembly.
Kean’s targets for ouster include Senate President Stephen Sweeney from Gloucester County; Jeff Van Drew in Cape May; Jim Whelan in Atlantic; Linda Greenstein in Mercer; Codey, the former governor, in an Essex-Morris district; and Bob Gordon in a Bergen County district. In addition, the Republicans think they can take the Senate seat vacated by Buono in the 18th District in Middlesex.
Christie beat Jon Corzine and independent Chris Daggett in 2009 in five of the seven districts targeted, and missed narrowly in the other two. He ran about four percentage points ahead of Corzine in Buono’s 18th District on his way to carrying all of Middlesex County, which was a key to his victory.
The Christie campaign is again paying extra attention to Middlesex County, and the governor is personally motivated to beat Buono on her own turf. But Buono won her Senate re-election campaign in 2011 with 60 percent of the vote, and Democratic Assemblyman Peter Barnes III, an Edison Democrat running for the open seat, won his 2011 re-election with just over 50 percent. Barnes is running against David Stahl, who has twice been elected mayor of East Brunswick—as a Democrat. Stahl switched parties in March.
Perhaps the most interesting race is developing in the 3rd District, where Niki A. Trunk, an attorney who was deputy chief of staff in the state comptroller’s office, is challenging Sweeney—the state’s most powerful Democrat and a possible future gubernatorial candidate.
Christie carried the towns in what is now Sweeney’s 3rd District by a margin of about 1,200 votes in 2009, while Sweeney won re-election two years ago by more than 5,000 votes, gaining more than 55 percent of the ballots cast. So it’s to be expected that Sweeney scoffs at predictions he is in jeopardy—or that his party will lose control. Reading the polls, Sweeney says, “People voting for the governor are returning to us.
“Why get rid of a Democratic legislature if we are working well together?” Sweeney asks. “We have been responsible working with him. But we’ve fought him, too. I think people like a divided government. They like what he’s doing, but they want someone to watch him.”
Bob Gordon certainly hopes that’s true. In the closest Senate race in 2011, Gordon won by less than 2,600 votes in the 38th District in Bergen County. Christie narrowly lost to Corzine in the towns that are part of that district. Gordon’s opponent is Fernando Alonso, who unsuccessfully bid for an Assembly seat in the district in 2011, falling short by more than 2,000 votes. Gordon’s Assembly running mates also won close elections in 2011.
In the 2nd District in Atlantic County, Democrat Whelan won his Senate seat by a little more than 3,000 votes in 2011. A former mayor of Atlantic City, Whelan beat an assemblyman to hold on to his seat. But the district’s two Assembly seats remain Republican, and this year Whelan is being challenged by a well-known opponent, Atlantic County Sheriff Frank X. Balles.
Among the targeted districts, Christie ran strongest against Corzine and Daggett in the 1st District in Cape May, capturing 50 percent of the vote in the district’s towns. Van Drew, known as an indefatigable campaigner, has won five times in the Republican-leaning district—three times for Assembly and twice for Senate. In his first campaign for Senate, he defeated a Republican incumbent. Van Drew’s opponent, Susan Adelizzi-Schmidt, is a public relations and marketing professional.
In the 14th District, former state Senator Peter Inverso seeking a return to the Legislature, is challenging incumbent Democrat Linda Greenstein. But the district, which includes parts of Mercer and Middlesex and is home to many state employees, is more Democratic than it was when Inverso last ran in 2003. Inverso retired from the Senate in 2008 after 16 years in office and has been president and CEO of Roma Bank, which is being merged into Investors Bancorp. Greenstein won her Senate seat in a special election to fill a vacancy in 2010, then won a full two-year term in 2011, capturing 55 percent of the vote.
As for Codey, the former governor’s Senate district in Essex County expanded into unfamiliar Morris County turf after re-districting two years ago. Still, Codey won 62 percent of the vote in 2011; his opponent this year is Lee Holtzman, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for an Assembly seat in 2011, finishing with about 40 percent of the vote.
Democrats are counting on a number of independent political committees to stage fall campaigns, chiefly fueled by labor unions and the New Jersey Education Association, which has battled with Christie throughout his first term. The NJEA established a so-called 527 advocacy group called Garden State Forward with nearly $5.5 million in its account, according to its June filing with the IRS. Garden State Forward, in turn, has contributed money to new independent political action committees, including the Fund for Jobs, Growth and Security, which committed resources and opened field offices in targeted legislative districts before Labor Day, according to executive director Jonathan Levy. Still another independent group helping Democratic legislative candidates was organized as a 501(c)(4) advocacy group.
“Democrats clearly have come to the conclusion to marshal everything to keep control of the Legislature,” says Carl Golden, who was press secretary to governors Kean and Christine Todd Whitman and is now a senior contributing analyst at the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Galloway Township. “Sweeney wants to stay as Senate president. He wants to make sure they hang on to both houses.”
A Quinnipiac University Poll in July did give Democrats some reassurance. While Christie was thumping Buono in the poll, more people said they would like to see Democrats in control of the state Legislature, 51 percent to 36 percent. And in August, 60 percent of potential voters said Christie’s endorsement of a legislative candidate wouldn’t make a difference. A Rutgers-Eagleton Poll found similar results. “We see a differentiation between Christie and Republicans generally,” says David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.
Still, Republicans are salivating at the prospect of a GOP-controlled Legislature. Despite the record of significant legislation passed with Democratic support in Christie’s first term—pension and health benefit reforms, a new teacher tenure law, a 2 percent property tax cap, and the merger of UMDNJ medical schools into Rutgers University and Rowan University—Kean and Jon Bramnick, the Assembly Republican leader who is also from Westfield, say there would have been far different results on education, the economy, taxes and government reform if the GOP had control.
In addition, a Republican-controlled Senate would likely break the logjam over judicial appointments. There were 49 judicial vacancies in Superior Court as of September 1, and Christie and the Democratic Senate have been at loggerheads on Supreme Court appointments for more than three years—since the Governor decided against re-appointing John Wallace to a second term in 2010. There are now two vacancies on the high court; gubernatorial nominations to fill those vacancies have stalled.
Whatever the down-ballot results, Christie will have reason to exult. If he helps elect a GOP Legislature in New Jersey, he will deflect some of the criticism he’s received from the national party’s hard-core. And if Democrats hold the Legislature, he will have them as foils to sharpen the kind of partisan rhetoric that voters in Republican presidential primaries demand. If you’re Chris Christie, you win some, and you win some.
David Wald is a former Star-Ledger political reporter and columnist.
