Mike Ferguson

The unexpected retirement of Republican Reps. Jim Saxton and Mike Ferguson has opened up a wide field of potential congressional candidates, many of whom have spent the last month in fundraising overdrive mode and have already gotten donors to cough up some impressive amounts of cash.

Congressional District 7

In the seventh congressional district, Republicans are lining up to challenge Democrat Linda Stender, who raised close to $2 million last year only to lose to Ferguson by one point. This time, unlike last, she has the full support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose Chairman, Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, came to the state in November to endorse and raise money for her and her third district counterpart John Adler.

Stender would not say how much she raised in 2007, but a source close to her said that the campaign has approximately $500,000 in the bank.

The two New Jersey House seats most clearly in play next year are the two that have been held by the Republicans for the longest period of time:  Democrats have not won the seat now held by Jim Saxton for 126 years, and Mike Ferguson’s district has not elected a Democrat since 1954.

Former Assemblyman Joel M. Weingarten of Millburn on Wednesday released a statement that he would not run for the 7th district Congressional seat being vacated at the end of next year by U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson.

He said his concerns include homeland security, taxes and the loss of core American values, among them Constituional rights.

"While I have a clear vision for our nation that encompasses these matters," said Weingarten, a Republican, "I have decided not to pursue elective office in 2008."

Right now, it’s looking like a two-candidate race for Mike Ferguson’s seventh district House seat between Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance and Kate Whitman, the 30-year-old daughter of the former Governor. Somerset Republican insiders say that Assemblyman Peter Biondi and Freeholder Jack Ciattarelli will be the next to announce that they won’t run for Congress.

Union County has two candidates who are, at this point, second tier: Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks and former Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield. Both will need to show considerable fundraising success by the end of this month – there won’t be another report due until April – and then one of them will have to dominate the local endorsement game, where Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. is the biggest catch. Kean could stay out of the race – a message to Union County Republicans that Lance and Whitman are stronger candidates – or endorse Lance outright.

Kelly Hatfield is the latest Republican to enter the 7th district House raceThe field of Republican candidates in the seventh congressional is getting more crowded.

Former Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield has decided to run for the Republican nomination to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson.

“I’m running,” said Hatfield, 54, who has a PhD in microbiology. “I’ve been meeting and talking with people not only in this county but throughout the district, and I think the residents of the district want someone who’s familiar with the issues and who has experience to be an effective advocate for them in Washington.”

Tim Gallic, a Summit High School science teacher and the brother of GOP political consultant Dan Gallic, is mulling a bid for the Republican nomination for Congress in the 7th district.

Gallic joins Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, former congressional aide Kate Whitman, Assemblyman Peter Biondi, former Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield, Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks, former Hillsborough Deputy Mayor Chris Venis, Hunterdon County Freeholder-elect Will Mennen, Warren Township Mayor Victor Sordillo, and conservative activist and former professional wrestler Michael Illions as potential candidates for Mike Ferguson’s House seat.

"Currently there is no announced candidate that represents the true base of the Republican Party. Each of the announced candidates holds positions that run counter the Republican Party platform. I'm not sure why New Jersey Republicans continue to raise up leaders that have more in common with the Democrat Party than their own party," Gallic said.

Fearful that Sen. Leonard Lance's idea of a good fight consists of slapping another man in the face with a glove and then offering him the first choice of dueling pistols, gutfighter Republicans last week were desperately scanning the horizon for a blue-collar primary alternative.

Into the breach stepped 30-year old Kate Whitman, who on Friday announced her designs on the 7th district Congressional seat. Never having held elected office, the daughter of former Governor and millionaire Christie Todd Whitman can at least boast that this is not her first eyelash bat in the direction of elected office.

With mom proudly looking on last spring, the younger Whitman delivered a precocious prose poem homage to Ronald Reagan as part of her effort to woo a roomful of GOP delegates at the Somerset County Party convention. Whitman's object was a shot at county freeholder, and her 1980s flashback prod came at a time when Republicans found invocations of the Gipper particularly useful in the face of walking train wreck - and onetime presidential heir - George W. Bush.

Since Election Day ’07, politics in New Jersey has centered on the unexpected retirements of Republican Congressmen Jim Saxton and Mike Ferguson – with barely any mention of the race next year for the United States Senate.  Frank Lautenberg, who turns 84 in January, is expected to seek re-election to a fifth term.  The last time the name of Anne Evans Estabrook, one of the Republicans seeking to challenge Lautenberg, appeared in a daily newspaper was a brief mention by the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 8 – 22 days ago.  Her rival for the GOP nod, Joseph Pennacchio, was mentioned in the Asbury Park Press on November 9, but in the context of his recent election to the State Senate.

Kate Whitman announced today that she will seek the Republican nomination for Congress in the seventh district. The former congressional aide and GOP operative is the daughter of former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

Former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler says he will not be a candidate for Mike Ferguson's 7th district House sat in 2008.  "I'm not running," Schundler told PolitickerNJ.com.