Christopher Smith

U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-Hamilton), who was a lobbyist for New Jersey Right to Life before his election to Congress in 1980, is serving as Co-Chair of Chris Christie's campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor.

The race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination moved to the negative side yesterday when a comparison mailer paid for by Steve Lonegan’s campaign criticized rival Chris Christie for being the “pro-choice candidate.”  Christie has made it clear that he is pro-life, and backed it up with an early endorsement from U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, who has been New Jersey’s leading pro-life Republican for nearly thirty years.  Smith rarely endorses in statewide Republican primaries, and observers who say that he would not have backed a candidate who doesn’t share his pro-life position are accurate.

U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-Hamilton) has served in Congress since he upset 13-term incumbent Frank Thompson in 1980.

News last summer, just before the Democratic National Convention, that Ashley Evans, 7, and her sister Sophia, 3, have been reunited with their father after being stuck in the Republic of Georgia after the Russian Army invasion two weeks ago essentially assured the re-election of U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith to a fifteenth term.  Smith traveled to Georgia last week to meet with officials and has remained there to help facilitate the safety of the two girls, who live in Howell Township in the fourth district.

The move ended the one promising campaign of Democrat Josh Zeitz, a college professor making his first bid for public office.  Smith beat Zeitz 66%-32% in a race some say was over even before the rescue mission.  Zeitz is now serving as a top policy advisor in the office of Gov. Jon Corzine.

This week, Smith scored another success by helping David Goldman, a Monmouth County resident, hold a reunion in Brazil with his eight-year-old son after four years. Smith accompanied Goldman, who has been fighting to regain custody of his son, an American citizen, who now lives with his step-father after his mother died last year.

Republican Jim McSorley is a possible candidate for State Assembly in the 14th district this year.

Former State Police Captain Jim McSorley, who ran an aggressive but ultimately unsuccessful campaign for Mercer County Sheriff in 2008, is considering a bid for State Assembly in the fourteenth district.  The Hamilton resident worked as an aide to U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-Hamilton) after leaving the state police.

The New Jersey House delegation voted along party lines in support of President Barack Obama’s $89 billion economic stimulus package.  New Jersey’s eight Democratic Congressmen voted yes, while the five Republicans voted no.

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews' 201,163 votes in the 2004 general election is the most received by any House candidate in New Jersey history

Republican Christopher Smith received 198,446 votes in his bid for re-election to a fifteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. That was the most total votes received by any House candidate in the 2008 cycle, and the third highest total votes in state history. (Smith's 2004 votes also gives him the #6 slot.)

The record for the most all-time votes goes to Rob Andrews in 2004.

Democrat Rush Holt, who won 181,189 votes, makes the list of the Top Ten All-Time Votegetters in New Jersey Congressional races; Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen, whose 2004 totals put him second on the all-time list, is also ranked #10, thanks to the 177,039 votes he received last week.

The Top Ten All-Time Votegetters in New Jersey Congressional races:

John Adler won a seat in Congress eighteen years after his first House race.

Now it seems trendy to run for Congress, lose, then spend a lot of years in state government before finally making it to Washington.  In 2006, Albio Sires won an open House seat twenty years after his first attempt.  Sires had challenged U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini as a Republican in 1986; he later won local office in West New York, and after switching parties in 1999, he beat an incumbent Assemblyman in the Democratic primary.  He became Assembly Speaker after the 2001 election, and went to Congress after Bob Menendez joined the United States Senate.

Both of New Jersey's freshmen Congressman had previously lost House races.  John Adler ran against Jim Saxton in 1990 and lost 60%-40%.  A year later, despite one of the two biggest Republican landslides in state political history, he ousted four-term GOP State Sen. Lee Laskin.  Leonard Lance first ran for Congress in 1996, when Richard Zimmer gave up his seat to run for U.S. Senate; he finished third in the GOP primary, behind Michael Pappas and John Bennett. Lance moved from the Assembly to the Satate Senate in 2001, and became Minority Leader in 2004.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has added New Jersey's fifth district to their "Red to Blue" fundaising program "once thought to be out of reach."  The Republican incumbent, Scott Garrett, faces Dennis Shulman, a blind Rabbi who has run an aggressive and surprisingly well-financed campaign in a district that hasn't elected a Democratic Congressman since 1978.  But the Red to Blue list is clearly not the DCCC's first-tier campaigns, and inclusion in the program doesn't assure any meaningful campaign dollars or substantial political support and includes over sixty House races nationally where Democrats aren't completely optimistic.  Josh Zeitz, who is challenging fifteen-term incumbent Christopher Smith in the fourth district, was added to the Red to Blue list in September.  Smith is still viewed as a safe bet for re-election.

Retired state police captain mounts uphill battle to oust Sheriff in Blue Mercer
It's a tough race for Jim McSorley, the Republican running for sheriff of Mercer County against incumbent Democrat Kevin Larkin.

Not only is it looking to be a strongly Democratic year in New Jersey, let alone in Democrat-dominated Mercer County, but during periods of previous decades when Republicans controlled the county, the sheriff was still a Democrat.

In fact, nobody seems to be able to recall the last time Mercer County elected a Republican sheriff.  McSorley said it's been at least for duration of his own life - 52 years.

"I tell people I intend to be the first one, at least in most of our lifetimes," said McSorley, a former state police captain who most recently worked as U.S. Rep. Chris Smith's policy director.

But as much as a long shot as the odds may make him, nobody accuses McSorley of running a lackadaisical campaign.

New Jersey Republicans have nine non-incumbent candidates for Congress in 2008, the most since 1976 when the state's House delegation had a 12-3 Democratic majority.  For the last decade, New Jersey Democrats have held a 7-6 majority in the House.

Here's a brief history of the party turnover of New Jersey House seats: