If the latest Rasmussen generic congressional ballot poll is correct, Save Jerseyans? Republicans are going to win all sorts of races this year where they ordinarily shouldn’t. That’s the good news for the GOP.
The bad news: the wave needs to be MASSIVE when you’re relying entirely on external forces to pull you across the finish line. You don’t need to outraise your opponent, and there is a point of diminishing return in expensive media markets since there’s only so much ad space in years where there are several competitive house races in the region; you do need enough to avoid being drowned out by the ambient noise.
Let’s take a quick post-Q2 look at the four districts where Republicans began the 2022 Midterm cycle with high hopes: NJ-03, NJ-05, NJ-07 and NJ-11.
In NJ-05, Republican nominee Frank Pallotta – who also served as the party’s standard-bearer in 2020, is continuing his history of failing to raise significant money. A veteran of the banking world, Pallotta pulled in only $141,937 in the second quarter of 2022. That paltry showing is all the worse when you learn that it included a $25,000 personal loan. Pallotta enters the final months of the race facing incumbent Josh Gottheimer (who has $14 million cash-on-hand) with only $64,057 in the bank. Interestingly, as first reported by this site and later by Fox News, Gottheimer and his allies invested resources back in the spring to BOOST Pallotta over his primary opponent, veteran Nick DeGregorio, who was actually raising money.
It’s a similarly grim story in NJ-11 where Democrat Mikie Sherrill is sitting on over $6 million while Republican ex-prosecutor Paul DeGroot added only $21,180 to his war chest between April, May and June 2022. He’s got $282,605 cash-on-hand but that takes into account a $200,000 personal loan. DeGroot arguably has more of an excuse than Pallotta; his district is bluer, and unlike NJ-05, the 11th has been on the periphery of the party’s reach list (Phil Murphy won the new NJ-05 by a single point last November but fell short in NJ-11 by 4-points).
NJ-03 and NJ-07 offer more encouraging pictures with 3 1/2 months left to go.
Bob Healey took in $1,371,840 between April 1st and June 30th; meanwhile, the NJ-03 Andy Kim challenger’s well-heeled mother has reportedly invested $2 million in a super PAC designed to boost her son’s chances.
Meanwhile, Tom Kean Jr. has $1,309,725 in the bank after a very respectably $703,418 second quarter. He’s taking on NJ-07’s Tom Malinowski who has been taking on water for months after his district got redder (Ciattarelli won it by double-digits in November 2021).
