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In huge win for McGreevey,
Democrats win control of Senate, gain six Assembly seats |
by Steve Kornacki, Wednesday,
November 5, 2003
Democrat
Karcher topples embattled Senate President
In a major political victory for Gov. James E. McGreevey,
Democrats captured control of the State Senate and gained seats in the
State Assembly, bucking a historical trend of a Governor's party losing
seats in a mid-term election.
Democrats have picked up at least one Senate seat, with
Ellen Karcher, the Marlboro Council President, ousted embattled Senate
Co-President John Bennett by a 51%-44% margin. In the 4th district,
former Acting State Police Superintendent Fred Madden leads GOP State Sen.
George Geist by just 90 votes out of more than 40,000 cast after spending
more than $3.3 million. Geist says he'll seek a recount.
Democrats also captured the Mercer County Executive post,
and retained their county government majorities in Bergen and Passaic
counties.
Two freshman Democratic Senators from Bergen County, Paul
Sarlo and Joseph Coniglio, easily held their seats. Sarlo beat former
Assemblyman John Kelly by a 53%-44% margin, while Coniglio bested
Assemblywoman Rose Heck, 44%-56%.
The only Republican to unseat a Democratic legislator was
Bill Baroni, a law professor from Mercer County, who easily defeated
two-term incumbent Gary Guear in the 14th district. Assemblywoman Linda
Greenstein narrowly defeated Republican Sidna Mitchell for the second
seat. Greenstein won by just 781 votes, and Baroni beat Guear by more than
5,000.
Democrats picked up six Assembly seats: David Mayer, a
former Gloucester Township Committeeman, defeated incumbent Steve Altamuro
in the 4th district; pediatrician Bob Morgan and investment banker Mike
Panter edged out longtime GOP incumbents Mike Arnone and Clare Farragher
in the 12th; Perth Amboy Mayor Joe Vas won against
Democrat-turned-Republican Assemblywoman Arline Friscia in the 19th; and
former Fair Lawn Mayor Robert Gordon and Fort Lee Councilwoman Joan Voss
won the 38th districts seats of Heck and Green Party Assemblyman Matt
Ahearn.
The Democrats nearly pulled off a major upset in the 13th
district. Democrat Leonard Inzerillo came within 216 votes of ousting
longtime GOP Assemblyman Joseph Azzolina.
As expected, Democrats have picked up the 33rd district
Assembly seat of Rafael Fraguela, with Union City Mayor Brian Stack the
easy winner. Fraguela was elected in 2001 as a Democrat and switched
parties in April after the Hudson Democratic organization denied him
support for a second term. Assembly Speaker Albio Sires was re-elected to
a third term.
Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny, the Hudson County
Democratic Chairman, defeated Fraguela to win a fifth term.
In the 1st district, Democrat Jeff Van Drew was re-elected
to a second term. Republican Jack Gibson, a former five-term Assemblyman
who was ousted by Van Drew in 2001, will return to Trenton. He won the
open seat vacated by Republican Nicholas Asselta, who will replace
retiring GOP State Sen. James Cafiero in the 1st district. Asselta had no
Democratic opposition. Van Drew led Gibson by 966 votes, with Republican
Drew McCrosson running third and Democrat Maria LaBoy finishing last.
The 36th district also split, with Assembly Minority Leader
Paul DiGaetano, a Republican, and Democrat Fred Scalera, were re-elected.
Peter Inverso, a Mercer County Republican, won a landslide
victory in his bid for a fifth term. He defeated former Assemblyman Skip
Cimino by a 59%-39% margin.
The Republican Senate Majority Leader, Anthony Bucco,
defeated Democrat Blair MacInnes by a 55%-45% margin. Senate Judiciary
Co-Chairman Bill Gormley won a 60%-37% win over Democrat Steve Swift.
Democratic State Sen. Byron Baer, a legislator since 1971,
coasted to a 62%-38% victory over Republican businessman Barry Honig. But
Baer's wife, Linda, lost her bid for Bergen County Clerk to incumbent
Kathleen Donovan.
In the third district, State Sen. Steve Sweeney gets a
second term. He defeated Republican Phil Rhudy by a 54%-46% margin.
Republican Diane Allen won a huge 60%-40% victory in her bid for a third
term over Democrat Diane Gabriel.
In Mercer County, Democrat Brian Hughes was elected County
Executive. He defeated Cathy DiCostanzo, the Republican County Clerk by a
49%-47% margin. Democrats maintained their majorities on Freeholder Boards
in Bergen and Passaic counties.
The Hudson County Democratic Organization scored a victory
in a Special Election for Freeholder, where appointed incumbent Ramades
Valazquez was seeking the seat vacated following the criminal conviction
of Nidia Davila-Colon. Valazquez trounced former Jersey City Mayor Gerald
McCann and three others.
Republicans won a hotly contested race for Cumberland
County Surrogate, with former Prosecutor Arthur Marchand narrowly
defeating former Freeholder Jennifer Lookabaugh. But the GOP fell short
in their bid to win control of the Freeholder Board; James Rocco unseated
Democrat Donna Pearson, but incumbent Louis Magazzu, the Cumberland County
Democratic Chairman, won re-election over Republican Scott Derby.
Republicans fells short of taking a majority on the Salem
County Freeholder Board, winning one of two seats.
Republican Muriel Shore, who won a special election
convention for Essex County Freeholder earlier this year, narrowly won a
two-year unexpired term. She defeated Democrat Eileen Fishman by 574
votes to remain the lone Republican in Essex County government.
By STEVE KORNACKI
PoliticsNJ.com
FREEHOLD, November 5 - Across New Jersey, it was a very good
night for Democrats and a not so good one for Republicans, and nowhere was
that more true than in the 12th District.
Voters in the Monmouth/Mercer-based district threw out the entire
all-Republican legislative team that had represented the 12th in Trenton
since 1989.
Topping the list of casualties was the state's highest ranking Republican,
state Senate Co-President John O. Bennett III (R-Little Silver), who lost
his bid for a sixth term in the upper house to Democrat Ellen Karcher,
Marlboro's council president and the daughter of the late Assembly Speaker
Alan J. Karcher.
Bennett, whose legislative career was launched with his election to the
Assembly in 1979, faced a difficult re-election campaign, thanks in large
part to the questions raised about his ethical conduct by a series of
reports that began appearing in the Asbury Park Press, the
district's largest paper, early in the spring.
Among other things, the stories revealed that Bennett's law firm had
double-billed one of its municipal clients, Marlboro Township, and that
the senator failed to list Marlboro as a client on his state financial
disclosure forms for eight consecutive years.
The initial wave of reports resulted in 19 front-page stories in the
paper, and calls from Republicans for Bennett to step aside, and thus
avoid risking what was otherwise considered a GOP-leaning seat.
Bennett refused to fold, though, first threatening to sue the paper -- he
never specified exactly what for -- and then fighting off a GOP primary
challenge in June. He then opted to stay in the general election campaign,
even though Monmouth County's Republican chairman suggested Bennett had
privately agreed to get out after winning the primary.
The Asbury Park Press didn't let up either, and throughout the primary and
general election campaigns continued to print stories that raised
questions about Bennett's ethical conduct. The paper also offered several
strongly worded editorials imploring voters to turn Bennett out of office.
Karcher made Bennett's ethics the top issue in her campaign, repeatedly
criticizing the senator for using his clout in Trenton to help secure
lucrative municipal legal work for himself and his law firms.
Bennett, according to one of the Karcher campaign's tag lines, had turned
Trenton's gold dome into a gold mine for himself.
The Bennett campaign's response was to attempt to tie Karcher to Governor
James E. McGreevey, who, polling suggested, was about as popular among New
Jerseyans as the grim reaper.
The anti-McGreevey strategy was a key component in just about every GOP
campaign's playbook across the state this year, and as it did in several
other key districts, the message apparently failed to resonate with voters
in the 12th District.
Instead, Karcher rolled up big numbers in the Democratic-strongholds of
Marlboro, Manalapan and the Mercer County portion of the district.
Bennett, meanwhile, fared well in some of the smaller, GOP-leaning
communities in the eastern part of the 12th, but it wasn't enough to
overcome the fatal blow the Bennett campaign received in Freehold
Township.
Freehold, a swing town, had long backed Bennett, and his campaign had said
in the run-up to the election that it was counting on winning Freehold by
at least 1,500 votes. When the returns were in, though, Karcher had won
Freehold by 200 votes, thereby securing for her the title "senator-elect."
At his Freehold headquarters, Bennett, who choked up at the tail end of
his remarks, recalled some of the achievements of his legislative career,
but left no doubt about his explanation for his loss.
Along with the state Democratic Party, which poured hundreds of thousands
of dollars into Karcher campaign, and Governor James E. McGreevey, whose
so-called "enemies list" Bennett was on, Bennett blamed what he called the
Asbury Park Press's "unrelenting mission to destroy my personal and
professional careers" for his defeat.
Minutes after Bennett conceded the race, Karcher appeared before a raucous
gathering of her supporters on the other side of town.
The state's latest giant-killer made it clear that ethics had been the
driving force of her campaign.
"It's time to end the perception, or worse, the reality that politicians
enter public service for personal gain," Karcher said.
Tremors from Karcher's win could be felt down-ballot as well, as
Democratic Assembly candidates Michael J. Panter and Dr. Robert Morgan
each narrowly one seats in the lower house, ousting long-time incumbents
Michael J. Arnone (R-Red Bank) and Clare R. Farragher (R-Freehold).
Ethics had also played a role in the Assembly race, with Farragher coming
under fire for putting her daughter on her legislative payroll and Arnone
taking heat for allegedly plagiarizing a press release and embellishing
his resume.
Steve Kornacki can be reached at
kornackinj@aol.com
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