Anne Evans Estabrook

Branding himself the everyman, state Sen. Joe Pennacchio formally entered the race for U.S. Senate today, contrasting himself with the two other candidates for the Republican nomination.

Industrial real estate developer Anne Evans Estabrook has marked her place as the Republican establishment’s choice, putting $1.6 million of her own money into the campaign, gaining the backing of many state officials, and taking away some of Pennacchio’s thunder by announcing the support of National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell less than an hour before Pennacchio’s press conference.

Pennacchio could also lose some more conservative voters to Ramapo College Finance Professor and two time statewide office candidate Murray Sabrin, who heads Ron Paul’s New Jersey campaign.

That leaves Pennacchio somewhere between them – more conservative than Estabrook, but more mainstream than Sabrin. So “Jersey Joe” Pennacchio, as he calls himself, is reaching out with a very simple slogan: “He’s one of us!” One of us meaning a former Reagan Democrat who worked his way through dental school at a pizza place and frequently references Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy.

Less than an hour before state Sen. Joe Pennacchio is to formally announed his run for U.S. Senate, one of his likely primary opponents has trumpeted the support of two powerful out-of-state Republican Senators.

According to a press release from Anne Evans Estabrook’s campaign, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign (R-NV) contributed $5,000 and $10,000 to her campaign, respectively.

Atlantic County Republican Chairman Keith Davis and Hudson County Republican Chairman Jose Arango both joined Anne Estabrook’s U.S. Senate campaign committee today.

“Change is coming,” said Davis in a press release.  “Anne Estabrook is the leader we need to provide a common-sense approach to finding solutions for New Jersey’s affordability crisis.”

Businesswoman Anne Evans Estabrook formally announced her run today for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, billing herself as a candidate who can deal with the state’s affordability crisis.

“With New Jersey facing a true affordability crisis and with politicians putting partisanship above problem-solving, there could be no more urgent time for someone like myself with an outside perspective and a lifetime of experience building consensus to roll up my sleeves to help fix that badly broken business called the federal government,” said Estabrook, who owns and operates an industrial real estate company.

Estabrook has been officially in the race since October, but waited until today to make a formal announcement from two locations: Kean University in Union and The Window Factory in Haddon Heights.

It happens every cycle: a candidate gets tripped up by revelations of a campaign contribution to the other party.  Sometimes it hurts – that’s one of the reasons Lewis Eisenberg dropped his bid for U.S. Senate in 2000 – and sometimes it doesn’t matter at all – like Jon Corzine’s donations to some Republicans when he was the Goldman Sachs Chairman.  And Anne Evans Estabrook’s contributions to Democrats like Robert Menendez and Linda Stender does not appear to bother Republican leaders considering her candidacy for the U.S. Senate.

Anne Evans Estabrook will challenge Frank Lautenberg in the 2008 U.S. Senate raceIt’s official. Anne Evans Estabrook is running for U.S. Senate.

Although she has not yet issued a formal announcement, Estabrook put out a press release today saying that she has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, transforming her exploratory committee into a senatorial campaign. That makes her the first Republican to officially announce against Democratic incumbent Frank Lautenberg in 2008.

Other potential Republican candidates include state Sen. Joe Pennacchio and Assemblyman Jon Bramnick.

In a press release, Estabrook touted her experience as CEO of Elberon Development Co. and as chair of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce to show that, although she’s a political newcomer, she’s ready for the job.

Two more county chairmen have thrown their support behind potential U.S. Senate candidate Anne Evans Estabrook. 

Newly elected Bergen County Republican Chairman Rob Ortiz and Warren County Chairman Doug Steinhardt announced today that they’re joining Estabrook’s exploratory committee.  Estabrook already has the support of the Republican Party chairs from Camden, Gloucester  Hunterdon, Monmouth, Salem and Union Counties. 

Mike Doherty will not seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

Instead, Doherty, an Assemblyman from the 23rd district, will throw his support behind fellow Assemblyman Joe Pennacchio, who announced last month that he was also mulling a bid for the nomination.

Doherty told PoliticsNJ.com that the primary reason he chose not to run was that a three-way primary race would be a “suicide mission," with sniping between himself and Pennacchio making it easier for potential candidate Anne Estabrook to win the primary.

Doherty said he's more ideologically in tune with Pennacchio and called Estabrook a "Democrat light" who would not stand a chance against Frank Lautenberg.

“I talked to Joe. We’ve talked for a number of months, and we both think it would really be a problem if we got two conservatives running and it would open the door for Estabrook to win the nomination,” said Doherty.

GOP Businesswoman Anne Evans Estabrook continues to gear up for a 2008 U.S. Senate bid against Frank Lautenberg. She has hired consultants Larry Weitzner and Tom Blakely, pollster Adam Geller, and fundraiser Maria Chappa. The team will meet today.

Editor's Note: Geller says he has not been hired by Estabrook, and Blakely notes that today's campaign meeting is with Chappa to discuss fundraising.

Anne Evans Estabrook, a 63-year-old millionaire real estate developer from Summit, is mulling a bid for the 2008 Republican U.S. Senate nomination. Her interest in the race against Frank Lautenberg is a signal that State Senator Thomas Kean, Jr., the '06 nominee, will not run next year. Estabrook has longtime ties to the Kean family, and spent more than twenty years as a Director of the Elizabethtown Water Co. She is a former Chairman of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority under Governor Christie Whitman.

Two GOP legislators are also considering a challenge to Lautenberg: Assemblyman Bill Baroni, a pro-life, pro-labor law professor who has won twice in a highly competitive Mercer/Middlesex district, and Michael Doherty, a three-term Assemblyman from Warren County and a former Freeholder who is one of the state's most conservative legislators.

Estabrook and her company, the Elberon Development Company, contributes heavily to Republicans, although her personal and corporate contributions to Democrats would likely become an issue as she seeks GOP party support. Estabrook contributed to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee in 2001 and 2005, to Bob Menendez's congressional race, to Linda Stender's Assembly campaign, to the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee in 2005, and to the Union County Democrats.

If the GOP nominates Estabrook, it would be the sixth time in twelve U.S. Senate races that New Jersey Republicans have picked a candidate who had never run in a general election. The others: David Norcross (1976), Jeffrey Bell (1978), Mary Mochary (1984), Peter Dawkins (1988), and Douglas Forrester (2002). Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate seat since 1972 and have not elected a first-time candidate to statewide office since U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Albert Hawkes won in 1942.