Editor’s Note – Veteran political writer Charles Stile analyzes what went wrong for Republicans in yesterday’s NJ legislative elections.
Charles Stile NorthJersey.com
New Jersey Republicans entered the legislative contests this fall buoyed by optimism. They held a shared hope that maybe — just maybe — their party could finally climb out of the wilderness and back into power for the first time in nearly two decades.
Or, at the very least, they hoped they could continue to weaken the Democratic Party’s iron grip on power in Trenton. GOP candidates wanted to build on the successes their party delivered in 2021 when Republicans stunned the political community by flipping seven seats and dethroned Senate President Stephen Sweeney at the hands of a little-known and underfunded truck driver, Ed Durr.
But optimism proved to be no match for the harsh reality of being Republican in a resolutely blue state. The GOP entered the race trailing in fundraising. The party once again fell far behind Democrats in the race for pre-election day voting, either by mail or early in-person voting.
And, at the end of the day, the party lacked a coherent message of hope. It didn’t articulate a vision of future Republican governance. The party sought to stir up its base with messages of fear.
The strategy failed.
The result: It was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who gained ground Tuesday night, winning back five seats.
Republicans hoped for a ‘common sense’ backlash that backfired
The Democrats will maintain their 25-15 edge in the state Senate, in part by defeating Durr, the truck driver in the 3rd Legislative District, which offset an expected loss in the 12th District in Monmouth and Middlesex counties. Sam Thompson, a long-time Republican who defected to the Democrats earlier this year, is retiring and the seat was expected to revert back to Republican hands. Owen Henry of Old Bridge will succeed him.
Throughout the fall campaign, Republicans believed they had a winning formula: Cast the Democrats as morally and politically bankrupt, advancing a series of radical, far-left policies that most middle-class and centrist voters find objectionable.
The party of liberal “King Phil” Murphy — as he was called during the pandemic — had run the table in Trenton far too long. Democrats had lost touch with a public clamoring “common sense,” a favorite GOP buzz phrase. Murphy’s was an administration, Republicans contended, that was banning gas stoves and killing whales by insisting on installing wind turbines off the Jersey Shore. Crime was running rampant in suburbia because of Murphy and the Democrats’ lax crime policies, GOP leaders claimed.
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