NJ-07

• Lance still faces money issues and Bush - in addition to Stender

• Stender tries to keep Lance battling Bush

• Lance denounces prez of Iran as a 'thug'

• 7th Congressional District debate underway in Scotch Plains
  

• Lance and Myers hit opponents on Rangel
  

• Pindell Report boosts Myers, Lance

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He’s a powerful Congressman from a different state, but House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Chares Rangel (D-N.Y.) is the issue du jour in New Jersey’s two competitive House races.

Rangel helped raise a lot of money for Democrats Linda Stender and John Adler with a fundraiser and PAC donations. Now that he’s under fire for several allegedly unethical practices, cash strapped Republicans Leonard Lance and Chris Myers think their more well-off Democratic counterparts should give the Rangel-related money back.

This isn’t the first time that Republicans have raised Rangel as a campaign issue. But the recent editorial by the New York Times calling for Rangel to step down from his committee chairmanship has made it relevant once again to the Myers and Lance campaigns.

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The Pindell Report, an independent analysis of state and federal races edited by Politicker.com's James W. Pindell, today upgraded the 3rd district House race from “Likely Democratic” to “Leans Democratic,” and said that the contest in the 7th district has become more competitive.

The ranking corresponds with more optimistic national prospects for Republicans, with presidential candidate John McCain surging in the two weeks since the Republican National Convention began.  In New Jersey, recent polls put McCain within three points of Barack Obama. 

“These are two longtime Republican seats.  Democrats haven't won the 3rd since 1882 and the 7th since 1956.  Republicans are getting over heated primaries, while Democrats had cleared the field for John Adler and Linda Stender,” said Pindell.  “While the Democrats have much more money, internal polls show this race to be getting a little closer.  If John McCain is getting the base behind him as polls suggest then Lance and Myers might have a shot after all.”

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Linda Stender leads Leonard Lance by three percentage points, 36%-33%, in the race for Congress from New Jersey’s seventh district, according to an Anzalone/Liszt Research poll conducted for the Stender campaign.

Bridgewater Councilman Michael Hsing, a Republican running as an Independent, is polling 9%.  Tom Abrams, a retired marketing executive running as an anti-war candidate, is receiving 2% of the vote.

The poll shows presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama in a statistical dead heat in the district: McCain 45%, Obama 43%.  President Bush has an upside-down favorable rating of 30%-64%.

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Former 7th District Republican Congressional candidate P. Kelly Hatfield said that State Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Flemington) understands that if he wants to beat Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood), he can’t ignore Union County.

Stender, a microbiologist and former Summit Council president, said she’s seen Lance a lot in her home county, and that he’s studied how Stender managed to get so close to winning in her 2006 campaign.

“He has to win Union County. A lot of the Republican towns went for Linda Stender in 2006, and Leonard knows this. He knows he has to win Summit, Clark and Westfield,” she said.

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GREEN BROOK -- The idea has dogged State Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Flemington) since he started his congressional campaign in the 7th District: that he's well respected as a policy wonk, but doesn't have the political wherewithal to run a federal race in a fiercely competitive district.

Lance's critics found evidence of that claim when they saw that he had only $80,000 cash on hand at the end of the last reporting period to rival Linda Stender's (D-Fanwood) $1.2 million.

Today, Lance acknowledged that some of his supporters were taken aback by the anemic war chest, but noted that he's raised a lot of money since the June 30th filing deadline - which occurred just 26 days after Lance blew his war chest against a well-funded primary campaign by Kate Whitman and five other candidates.

Lance said that he doesn't know how much he's raised since then, but that he's certain it's "more than $100,000."  He also has six fundraisers scheduled over the coming months, and will stay home to campaign and raise money during the Republican National Convention in September.

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Linden Mayor Richard Gerbounka has endorsed John McCain for President, but declined to say who he would support for Congress in the hotly contested seventh district race between Democrat Linda Stender and Republican Leonard Lance.  Part of Linden is in the seventh.  Gerbounka was a Democratic Councilman until launching an Independent bid to unseat longtime Mayor John Gregorio in 2006.

Back in 1984, another Democratic Mayor from Union County endorsed a GOP presidential candidate.  In a much heralded announcement, Ronald Reagan won the backing of Thomas Dunn, who spent 28 years as the Mayor of Elizabeth.  That year, Reagan beat Walter Mondale in Elizabeth by nearly 4,000 votes, 56%-44%.  Reagan carried Linden by slightly less than 2,000 votes, also 56%-44%.  In other Democratic Union County strongholds, Reagan won Rahway by almost 2,000 votes (58%-42%), but lost Plainfield by almost 7,000 votes, 72%-28%.  But Reagan had no coattails: Democrat Bill Bradley, seeking a second term in the United States Senate, carried Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway and Plainfield by wide margins.

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The Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) seems confident that Democrats will pick up two House seats in New Jersey this year, but stopped short of promising financial help to Dennis Shulman, a blind Rabbi who is challenging Rep. Scott Garrett in the 5th district.

"The closer we got to Election Day the more opportunities developed. Sometimes as you get closer some fall off the list. The last time we went through this in 2006, the closer we got to voting day the more competitive," said Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-Md.) in a conference call with reporters today.

The DCCC's third priority in New Jersey is Shulman, who has raised a lot of money for a challenger in a long-shot district, and whose unique personal story has recently drawn national media attention from publications like Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker.

"The short answer is that we're very impressed with what they've done and we see that campaign on an upward trajectory," he said. Read More >

State Sen. Leonard Lance’s congressional campaign yesterday questioned why his Democratic rival, Assemblywoman Linda Stender, was so quick to give her campaign donations back to former Assemblyman Neil Cohen, but has kept larger donations from U.S. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.).

Rangel has faced scrutiny for leasing four rent stabilized apartments in his Harlem home district—one of which he uses as a campaign office and pays for with campaign funds. Cohen resigned from his Assembly seat on Monday amid allegations that he had child pornography on a legislative office computer.

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In the race for Congress in New Jersey’s 7th district, the Republican candidate trails an independent in cash on hand.   State Sen. Leonard Lance has just $80,792 in his war chest, as of his most recent Federal Election Commission filing, and Michael Hsing, a Republican Councilman from Bridgewater who briefly challenged Lance for the GOP nomination and is now running as an independent, has $91,637.  Democrat Linda Stender, a State Assemblywoman, has $1.2 million in the bank.

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