By Matt Rooney
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The dawn of an election cycle’s last full week (!) is never a bad time for a political history lesson, Save Jerseyans.
Let’s journey back twenty-eight years to October 28, 1990. A Star-Ledger/Eagleton poll (they weren’t affiliated with Rutgers back then, during the poll’s first incarnation) announced that incumbent Democrat Bill Bradley was leading his challenger, Christine Todd Whitman, by a massive 36-point margin heading into Election Day, the first midterm of George H. W. Bush’s presidency.
Oops.
One week later, on November 6, 1990, Christine Todd Whitman fell short of upsetting the basketball and political legend by just 3-points. Voter anger at Governor Jim Florio’s tax policies spilled over into the U.S. Senate race, a dramatic and star-propelling prelude to Whitman’s eventual triumph three years later in the gubernatorial contest.
Whitman ultimately won two terms in office (leaving part-way through her second term to join the Bush Administration), surviving a reelection bout with future Governor Jim McGreevey by only 1-point in a race in which Libertarian Murray Sabrin siphoned off nearly 5-points on General Election Day.
Yes, 2018 is a very different time in New Jersey. The state has changed dramatically on the political and demographic fronts and yes, every cycle is undeniably unique.
The parallels between then and now are nevertheless compelling.
Bob Hugin is a socially liberal and fiscally conservative Republican challenger looking to upset a Democrat institution — Bob Menendez — who as-of-late seems more vulnerable than anyone would have ever guessed even three short months ago. The ethics/corruption issue almost NEVER works because the electorate is understandably jaded. Is Menendez the exception to the rule? Is there just too much stink for a critical mass of voters to abide?
Murray Sabrin is back on the ballot, too, once again as a third party candidate.
Menendez isn’t up 36-points in anyone’s estimation, but his RCP average lead of 7.7-points points to a win on its face. The proximate reason why the Cook Political Report just shifted the race to its “toss up” column goes beyond polling; a fury of fresh investment by both camps — at a time when there are plenty of purple and red battlegrounds in other states that could use the cash — points to Menendez’s underlying vulnerability with independents and soft Democrats, the latter group which deserted him in droves during June’s primary when approximately 40% of voting Democrats chose an unknown, underfunded opponent.
Hugin could win by a hair (Whitman 1997) or fall short by a few-to-several points (Whitman 1990 or, worse case scenario, Tom Kean Jr. in 2006) on November 6th. Most of the insiders with whom I’ve spoken are coalescing around that range of outcomes.
A third possibility — a comfortable double-digit Menendez win — isn’t out of the question by any means. New Jersey gives Democrats low-to-mid teens victories all of the time. All I can say is that it simply doesn’t feel like that right now (read the Cook analysis), and neither side is acting like they think it’s going to be a walk, either, especially as Hugin dumps millions more of his own cash into the contest and begins to visibly chip away at the Democrats’ Northeastern Latino base in the incumbent’s own backyard. Normally, at this stage of the race, the Democrat is pulling away after some late summer/early fall teaser polls suggesting a competitive race. We’ll see what the polls like like after Hugin’s latest round of attack ads, but as of this writing, all evidence points to a tightening, not widening (e.g Menendez’s lead in Quinnipiac poll dropped from 11-points to 7-points among likely voters over a two-week span).
If next week resembles 1990? Or even 2006?
The well-heeled Hugin will probably be the odds-on favorite for the NJGOP nomination in 2020 (especially if Booker runs for president and elects to not run for U.S. Senate himself) or 2021 (when Governor Phil Murphy faces the voters again). A lot can happen in the intervening period, of course.
If it looks more like 1997?
Republicans haven’t elected a U.S. Senator in New Jersey since 1972; there won’t be enough champagne up in Westfield.
History always repeats itself eventually, Save Jerseyans. All we’re waiting to see is which chapter.
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