Express any optimism about GOP chances in an upcoming New Jersey election, and Republicans elsewhere are likely to roll their eyes. They’ve heard it before, they’ll insist; in fact, they’ve heard it almost every year. They were told that George W. Bush was going to take the Garden State in the 2000 presidential election, that Bret Schundler was going to beat Jim McGreevey in the 2001 governor’s race, that Doug Forrester was going to unseat scandal-tainted Sen. Bob Torricelli in 2002, that the 9/11 effect was going to put New Jersey in play in the 2004 presidential race, that Forrester had a good chance to hinder Jon Corzine’s purchase of the governor’s mansion in 2005, that Tom Kean Jr. had a real shot at beating Bob Menendez in the 2006 Senate race, and that Dick Zimmer could give the petrified fossil of Sen. Frank Lautenberg a competitive race last year.
None of those scenarios came to pass. In fact, the Democrats have carried 16 out of the last 18 statewide races in New Jersey. The only Republican to have won statewide since 1990 is Christine Todd Whitman, twice elected governor.
So when the Quinnipiac University poll shows incumbent governor Jon Corzine trailing Republican Chris Christie 44 percent to 38 percent, should Republicans get their hopes up? When the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll shows an even more dire outlook for Corzine — 46 percent disapproval and 40 percent approval, trailing Christie 41 percent to 32 percent — is it time to think, finally, that better days are ahead for New Jersey Republicans?
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“Yes and no,” answers Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “The Republicans have an excellent shot at winning the governor’s race, provided they nominate a moderate, mainstream, traditional New Jersey Republican.”
With the economy in recession, things are tough all over, but New Jersey is among the hardest hit. It is currently suffering from a $7 billion budget shortfall and, according to the Tax Foundation, has had the worst tax burden in the country three years running. The situation makes some locals recall the 1991 anti-tax fury that gave Republicans sweeping gains in the state legislature and prompted the widespread bumper-sticker slogan “Florio-Free in ’93,” opposing then-governor Jim Florio.
