Edwin Forsythe

Left to right: Congressmen George Robeson, Henry Loudenslager, Charles Wolverton, William Cahill and John Adler.

Only two Democrats have won what is now the third congressional district since Chester Arthur was President: Thomas Ferrell and John Adler.  PolitickerNJ.com looks at the chain of custody, not district numbers, to determine the lineage of a particular seat in Congress.

In 1882, with just 50.1% of the vote, Ferrell, a former State Senator, Assemblyman and Glassboro Committeeman, ousted Republican George Robeson, a two-term Congressman with an impressive resume. A Civil War General, Robeson spent two years as state Attorney General and nearly eight years as U.S. Secretary of the Navy in the cabinet of President Ulysses Grant.

Ferrell was beaten for re-election in 1884 by Republican George Hires, a former Salem County Sheriff and State Senator.  Hires won 50%-45%, starting a 124-year streak of Republican victories in this congressional district.

Former Mt. Holly Mayor James B. Smith, who ran for Congress against Republican Jim Saxton three times, passed way of an apparent heart attack early this morning. Smith was Saxton's opponent in 1984 when the death of seven-term Republican Edwin Forsythe opened up the Burlington/Ocean/Camden House seat.  He defeated former State Sen. Herbert Buehler and two others in the Democratic primary, but lost to Saxton, then a two-term State Senator, by a 61%-38% margin.  Smith won 31% against Saxton in the 1988 and 1994 elections. Funeral services will be held later this week. 

State Senator Arthur Lewis was just 44-years-old when he retired from his Burlington County seat in 1948, creating a hotly contested race for an open seat. The winner was James Mercer Davis, Jr, the 39-year-old Democratic Chairman; he defeated Assemblyman Albert McCay, 47, a prominent South Jersey attorney, by a 52%-48% margin. But McCay won a 1951 rematch, ousting Davis by a 57%-43% margin. McCay was re-elected to a second term in 1955 with 56% of the vote against Edward Hulse, the Mayor of Beverly.

McCay's political career came to an end in 1959, when Burlington County Freeholder Henry Haines defeated him by a 54%-46%. But Haines turned out to be a one-term Senator: his opposition to several key legislative initiatives backed by Governor Richard Hughes caused Democrats to dump Haines from the organization line when he ran for re-election in 1963. Grover Richman, the Burlington County Democratic Chairman (and the former New Jersey Attorney General) backed Hulse, who had won election to the Board of Freeholders in 1960 and was Hughes's brother-in-law. Hulse won 57% of the vote in the primary, but lost the general election to the Republican, former Moorestown Mayor Edwin Forsythe, by a 54%-46% margin. Forsythe went on to serve as Senate President and won election to Congress in 1970 after William Cahill became Governor.