Leonard Lance

If Hunterdon County Freeholder Matthew Holt wins his bid for State Assembly, he'll follow a 23rd district tradition of sending the scion of prominent Republican families to the Legislature.  He is the grandson of Clifford Case, who represented New Jersey in the United States Senate from 1955 to 1979, and Union County in the State Assembly from 1943 to 1944.

Leonard Lance, who represented the 23rd district from 1991 until taking his seat in Congress earlier this month, is the son of Wesley Lance, a former Senate President who served from 1942 to 1943, and again from 1954 to 1962.  Walter "Moose" Foran, who served in the Assembly from 1970 to 1977, and in the Senate from 1977 until his death in 1986, was the son of former Senate President Arthur Foran, who served from 1936 to 1941.

Seven legislators had fathers who served in Trenton: State Senators Christopher Bateman and Christopher Connors, Assemblyman Thomas Giblin and Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose had fathers who were in the State Senate; and State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., Assemblyman Peter Barnes and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle had fathers who served in the State Assembly. Read More >

• Karrow wins Senate seat; calls for unity as Doherty vows to fight her in primary
• Voting underway now in Clinton in a larger context as Lonegan makes an appearance
• Karrow presents herself as rural and local
• Doherty presents himself as the fiscal and social conservative
• Nominating speeches moments away
• It has begun
• Republicans to fill Lance seat today
• With a Senate primary comes two contested Assembly seats
• More than 40 GOP County Committee members didn't show up to elect a new Senator
• Assemblymen beating Senators in primaries are rare
• Karrow will serve on Appropriations Committee
• Next up: the race for Karrow's Assembly seat
• Will Doherty give up his Assembly seat for a second shot at Karrow?
• 25% of Senate entered through special election

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Marcia Karrow won a State Senate seat by 42 votes, 195-143, boosted by receiving 70% of the vote (125-54) in her home county of Hunterdon and by holding Michael Doherty to 56% (89-70) in his home county of Warren.

Voter turnout in Hunterdon was 86%; thirty Republican County Committee members from Hunterdon County did not show up to vote today.  GOP County Chairman Henry Kuhl told PolitickerNJ.com this week that there were three vacancies out of 212 seats.

Karrow's vote tally in Hunterdon (125) was nearly equal to the votes received by Kuhl (124) in his 2008 re-election bid.  But while Kuhl's opponent, Bloomsbury Mayor Mark Peck, received 78 votes, Doherty won just 54.
 
All but a few of the 181 County Committee seats in Warren were filled.  Today, 159 votes were cast from Warren County.

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Senator-elect Marcia Karrow, who was elected a few hours ago, will get an open seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, according to senior Senate Republican staffers.  Karrow, who serves on the same panel in the Assembly, is taking the Senate seat of Leonard Lance, who was elected to Congress.  The Appropriations Committee seat also belonged to Lance.  Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. has offered the ranking Minority slot on Appropriations to Anthony Bucco, who had been actively challenged for the slot by Kevin O’Toole.

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Today is Election Day in parts of Hunterdon and Warren counties, where members of the Republican County Committee from the 23rd legislative district will hold a special election convention to replace Leonard Lance in the State Senate.  Lance resigned from the Senate on January 3 to take his seat in Congress.

Two Republicans are seeking to replace Lance: four-term Assemblyman Michael Doherty, 45, a former Warren County Freeholder and West Point graduate; and Marcia Karrow, 49, a two-term Assemblywoman who has served as a Hunterdon County Freeholder and as Mayor of Raritan Township.

 Doherty is viewed as one of the most conservative members of the Legislature and has mulled bids for higher office in recent years, including an exploratory committee for the 2008 U.S. Senate nomination.  He was he only legislator to back Ron Paul for President in the last election.  Karrow, a graduate of Smith College, has masters degrees from the University of Michigan and CUNY.  She  is viewed as a moderate and has the backing of the Hunterdon County Republican organization and eight mayors from Warren County.

The winner will get sworn in to the Senate at their next session, now scheduled for February 23.  The Senate contest will trigger another special election convention to fill the soon-to-be vacant Assembly seat.

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Tomorrow is Election Day in Hunterdon County, where Assemblyman Michael Doherty and Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow will face off in a special election convention to replace Leonard Lance as the State Senator from the 23rd district. Lance resigned his State Senate seat earlier this month to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Doherty is widely considered to be the front runner, but insider contests decided by County Committee members can produce some surprises in a race where no polling of a finite universe of voters has been conducted.  Either way, District 23 Republican County Committee members will need to return soon to fill the soon-to-be vacant Assembly seat of the winner.  Three Freeholders - Matthew Holt and Erik Peterson of Hunterdon and John DiMaio of Warren - are already announced candidates for the Assembly.  A fourth candidate, Bloomsbury Mayor Mark Peck, is also mulling an Assembly bid.

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Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. must soon name a new ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee and has to pick between two candidates who are actively seeking the job: Anthony Bucco and Kevin O'Toole.  The 70-year-old Bucco, who has been a Senator since 1997, has seniority on his side, while O'Toole, 44, has political clout - he's the Essex County GOP Chairman and the Chairman of the Republican County Chairman's group - and the support of many of the younger Senators that entered the upper house with him one year ago.

 

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The telephone war between Assemblyman Michael Doherty (D-Washington Twp.) and Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan Twp.) went into high gear today, with the Karrow forces securing an endorsement from Hunterdon County Freeholder Ron Sworen and Doherty going outside the box to land the backing of Republican activist Bill Spadea, president of the grassroots GOP outfit, Building the New Majority. 

A veteran of the Marine Corps, Spadea proudly endorsed Doherty for the vacant senate seat in the 23rd Legislative District. 

“Mike is a great role model for the residents of New Jersey,” said Spadea. “A West Point graduate and military veteran, Mike and his wife, Linda, have passed on their patriotism and love of country to their three sons, all of whom are now serving on active duty in the military. 2009 is a critical year in New Jersey. We have a great opportunity to defeat Jon Corzine and a new Republican governor will need strong, articulate, free market advocates like Mike Doherty in the state senate to rein in government and restore fiscal responsibility to Trenton. He has my whole-hearted support.”

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In order to make that leap to the next level, it comes down to this abbreviated week of eleventh-hour phone calls and handshakes for Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) and Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan Twp.), each of whom wants to be the next state senator from the 23rd Legislative District.

This is not a battle of opposing ideologies, so much as it is a muscle-flexing exercise for each candidate to prove he or she can sap votes out of the other’s home county.

In a big rural legislative district encompassing portions of the state’s western region where towns have names like Independence, Liberty and White, the Hunterdon-based Karrow and Warren-based Doherty consider themselves tough-nut conservatives.

They want to get rid of the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) and ditch the Abbott Schools system. They’re pro-death penalty and anti-gay marriage. Doherty’s straight arrow pro life; Karrow against partial birth abortions.

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The joint Republican County Committees of Warren and Hunterdon Counties will convene a convention on Saturday, January 24 to decide whether Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) or Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan Twp.) will succeed former state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton) in the 23rd  District.

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