YOU MIGHT THINK with more electoral votes than Wisconsin, Iowa, or Missouri, and with local polls showing the president narrowly trailing his Democratic opponent, that New Jersey would by now have played host to both George W. Bush and John Kerry. In fact, neither man has stumped there, or even dropped into one of the state’s ubiquitous diners.
It would also seem a ripe opportunity for Bush to put Kerry on the defensive in a state that has been a Democratic stronghold. Four years ago, New Jersey chose Al Gore over Bush by a 16-point margin (56 percent to 40 percent). In 1996, the state went for Bill Clinton by 18 percentage points. In early August, right after the Democratic convention, the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll showed Kerry leading Bush by 20 points. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Kerry now leads Bush by a mere 3 points (49 percent to 46 percent).
What explains the closing gap? Some think the reason must be 9/11. More than 700 New Jerseyans died at the World Trade Center that day. That’s more loss of life than in any other state except New York. Middletown Township, with fewer than 70,000 residents, lost almost 50 people in the towers. The following month saw the anthrax scare–with four contaminated letters bearing Trenton postmarks. In August it was reported that one of the targets for possible terrorist attack was the Prudential Financial Center in Newark. Meanwhile, an estimated four million cargo containers are entering Port Elizabeth each year, fueling fears of smuggled nuclear weapons.
Patrick Murray, acting director of the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll, says that although most New Jerseyans agree with Kerry on social issues, “it is terrorism that is really worrying us because we know what the cost of terrorism is.” He points out after the Democratic convention, Kerry had a 4-point advantage over Bush on the question of who would better prosecute the war on terror. “That swung absolutely the opposite way after the Republican convention, and it was the only number that swung that large.”
Both campaigns know well the importance of homeland security. Two weeks ago, John Edwards led a rally in Newark alongside 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser. “Using one of the greatest tragedies in American history, something many people in this room understand personally, is wrong,” said Edwards. (Unless, that is, you’re stumping with a 9/11 widow.) Four days later, former mayor Rudy Giuliani rallied on behalf of the president in Bergen County.
The other explanation for the tight race may be the scandals that have tainted the state’s Democrats. In 2002, Democratic governor James McGreevey announced he had hired “a security adviser from the Israeli Defense forces.” Except this adviser had no experience in security. In fact, he is an Israeli publicist and poet named Golan Cipel.
Cipel now claims to have been sexually harassed by McGreevey and has threatened a lawsuit. The governor insists the affair was consensual but nevertheless announced in August his intention to resign later this fall (in a speech that will be remembered for the line, “I am a gay American”).
The McGreevey episode, though, was only the latest in a series of scandals to rock the state. There was, for instance, former senator Robert Torricelli, who, after being accused of taking extravagant bribes and under intense scrutiny, dropped out of his own race a month before the 2002 election. Democrats then pinch-hit with retired senator Frank Lautenberg who went on to win. McGreevey’s state police superintendent quit after rumors leaked of his alleged ties to organized crime. One of the governor’s strongest backers, real-estate magnate Charles Kushner–whom McGreevey wanted to head the Port Authority board–faces up to two years in prison for various corruption charges and witness-tampering. (Trying to blackmail those testifying against him, Kushner hired prostitutes to try to seduce the witnesses on videotape. This actually worked with one of the men–Kushner’s brother-in-law.)
Meanwhile, the governor’s resignation on November 15 makes way for Richard Codey, president of the state senate, to take over as the unelected acting governor. Under New Jersey law, Codey gets to keep both jobs and both salaries. “Talk about your checks and balances,” says David Rebovich, a political science professor at Rider University. “He’s the Senate president. What is he going to say to his caucus? ‘I think we’re going to have to amend this because I have a feeling the governor is not going to like it?'”
Fred Siegel, a professor at the Cooper Union, thinks that in fact New Jersey voters may indeed be thinking about checks and balances. “There is this steady dripping effect,” he says. “It hasn’t stopped since Torricelli. You add this question of unchecked power, and the idea of a Republican in the White House doesn’t seem so bad as a counterpoint.”
Are Democrats worried? “I am always worried,” says Rep. Bill Pascrell, the Kerry-Edwards co-chair. Pascrell is not one to take anything for granted and admits that some combination of 9/11 and the McGreevey scandal has turned New Jersey into a battleground. Because the candidates are focusing elsewhere, Pascrell says “we’ve got to raise all the money on our own and get out the vote.” Still, he insists, “We are exactly where we should be.” He predicts Kerry will win by 8 to 12 points.
Republican Douglas Forrester, the man who lost to Frank Lautenberg in 2002 but is contemplating a gubernatorial run next year, thinks the race will be much closer. “There is a great sense of awareness of the magnitude of what terrorists can do,” he says, which will help Bush. Forrester has also seen polls “in which corruption ranks as the second concern among the electorate, which is extraordinary. . . . The Democratic party is suffering from the fallout . . . and it’s translating not just into state politics but also politics at the federal level.”
Like Pascrell, Forrester acknowledges his state party will mostly go it alone. “One of the difficulties New Jersey faces is that the media markets serving us are in New York and Philadelphia, so unlike other states, we aren’t dealing exclusively with a decision to allocate just to one place.” According to David Rebovich, ad buys on the New York network affiliates can cost roughly $4 million per week.
Cheaper than advertising, a campaign appearance by a surrogate can also be effective. Edwards’s Newark rally came on the heels of a surprise visit by Laura Bush. She is scheduled to return next week. Vice President Cheney is also expected to stop in. New Jersey Republicans are hoping these visits will turn the tide.
Bush won’t need New Jersey’s coveted 15 electoral votes in order to win reelection. It may be enough just for the president to keep the race close, forcing the Democrats to divert resources and time from other battleground states. Of course if Bush were actually to win in New Jersey, he would probably be looking at a victory similar to the one the last time a Republican won that state–in 1988, when his father won a landslide over Michael Dukakis, that other liberal from Massachusetts.
Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
