Malcolm Forbes

The New Jersey Legislature is often the breeding ground for gubernatorial candidates, but by 2009 it will have been 81 years since a sitting state legislator has been elected Governor -- the last time was in 1928, when Morgan Larson, a Republican State Senator from Middlesex County, won.

Over the last fifty years, only four incumbent legislators -- State Senators Malcom Forbes (1957), Wayne Dumont (1965), Raymond Bateman (1977) and James E. McGreevey (1997) -- have won gubernatorial primaries, and all four have lost their general elections.

In 1958, Democrat Alexander Feinberg and former GOP Assemblyman William Cahill faced off in the old first district for the seat of Republican Charles Wolverton, who was retiring after 32 years in Congress. A Democratic year nationally, Cahill held on for a 1,829 vote victory, 50%-49%. Had Cahill lost his congressional race, he probably would not have won election as Governor in 1969.  (Feinberg, a Cherry Hill Democrat, became friends with the Senate candidate that year, Harrison Williams.  More than two decades later, when Williams was indicted in the Abscam scandal, Feinberg was a co-defendant.)

The other race was a 1953 Special Election for the seat of Republican Clifford Case, who had resigned during his ninth year in office to become the president of The Fund for the Republic. (Case returned to politics one year later to win the U.S. Senate seat of retiring freshman GOP Senator Robert Hendrickson). Most observers at the time expected the Republican, Plainfield Mayor George Hetfield, to easily win Case's congressional seat. His Democratic opponent was a 33-year-old lawyer and World War II veteran who had already lost races for State Assembly in 1951 and Plainfield City Councilman in 1952, Harrison Williams.

Henry Alexander Smith represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate from 1944 to 1959.H. Alexander Smith was a late bloomer in New Jersey politics. Born in New York, he spent twelve years practicing law in Colorado Springs (his nephew, Peter Dominick, was the Senator from Colorado before losing his seat to Gary Hart in 1974) and worked at the U.S. Food Administration in Washington during World War II. He moved to New Jersey at age 39 to become Executive Secretary of Princeton University, and was elected New Jersey's Republican National Committeeman 23 years later.

After U.S. Senator Warren Barbour died in office at the end of 1943, Smith decided to run for the United States Senate. He was 64-years-old when he defeated Congressman Elmer Wene, a onetime chicken farmer from Cumberland County, by 25,725 votes -- a 50%-49% margin. He was re-elected in 1946 (by nearly nineteen percentage points against Camden Mayor George Brunner) and again in 1952, by a 56%-44% margin over Archibald Alexander.

If Sandra Cunningham wins the Democratic State Senate nomination in the 31st district, she would become the first woman to follow her late husband to the New Jersey Senate, and the first widow to take her husband's legislative seat since Mary Scanlon was elected in 1977.

If he loses, Joseph Doria would become the first former Assembly Speaker to lose his Senate seat in a primary since 1953, when Freas Hess was defeated for re-election in the Republican State Senate primary by Malcolm Forbes. The last former Assembly Speaker to lose a State Senate race was Marion West Higgins, the only woman to ever lead the lower house. She was Speaker in 1965, the year she lost a Senate race and the GOP lost both houses of the Legislature.