Paul Krebs

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) turns 86 in January. His term is up four years after that.

Massachusetts Legislature has passed a bill that will allow the Democratic governor to appoint an interim United States Senator to replace the late Ted Kennedy.  Five years ago, when there was a good chance that Democrat John Kerry might get elected president, the Democratic-controlled Legislature changed the law so that Republican Gov. Mitt Romney could not appoint Kerry's successor.  The state now has no Senator as voters await a special election.

In New Jersey, where polls show Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine trailing in his re-election bid, some Democratic leaders are talking about a contingency plan that might prevent Republican Christopher Christie from appointing a U.S. Senator, if Democrat Frank Lautenberg, who turns 86 in January, leaves office without finishing the final four years of his term.  If Corzine loses, one plan that will receive consideration, Democratic sources say, would be legislation passed during the lame duck session later this year taking the appointment away from the governor and forcing a quick special election.  Corzine could sign that bill before he leaves office in January.

The GOP's best hope of electing a Republican U.S. Senator could come with the election of a Republican governor.  Democrats, anxious to mainatin their filibuster-proof 60-vote majority, may not want to chance it.  And New Jersey's junior Senator, Robert Menendez, is the Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Gov. Jon Corzine faces just token opposition in the Democratic primary, although some pundits are watching to see if a significant number of Democrats - perhaps more than twenty percent of them - vote against him anyway.  In what is more of a race for second place, three other Democrats are running for Governor: Carl Bergmanson, a former Mayor of Glen Ridge; Roger Bacon, a factory worker who runs a customized ceramic mug business; and Jeff Boss, who claims to have witnessed the U.S. government planning the 9/11 terrorist attack. 

There are reports that some public employee unions are, very quietly, suggesting that their members vote for Bergmanson.  Their hope is that the vote totals of today's primary could influence Corzine over the next 28 days. 

For New Jersey Democrats, there was never a better year than 1973.  Republicans ousted their incumbent Governor, moderate William Cahill, in the primary and replaced him with Charles Sandman, a conservative Congressman.  Democrats, helped by the Watergate scandal in Washington (two weeks before the general election, Richard Nixon fired the Watergate special prosecutor in what was called "The Saturday Night Massacre") and the criminal conviction of top GOP officeholders in New Jersey, won the governorship by 721,378 votes (68%-32%).  Brendan Byrne won every county but Cape May - Sandman's home county.  Sandman's defeat was the worst for a Republican in New Jersey history.

Democrats picked up thirteen State Senate seats and 26 Assembly seats, leaving the Legislature with ten Republicans in the Senate and fourteen in the Assembly.  Only four legislative districts out of forty elected Republicans to the Senate and both Assembly seats; 36 districts sent at least one Democrat to the Legislature, including Hunterdon, Ocean, Morris, Sussex and Warren counties.

If John Adler and Linda Stender win their races for Congress, they'll accomplish a feat that rarely occurs in New Jersey -- winning the seat of a retiring Congressman from the other party in a contest unrelated to the drawing of new districts. The last time this happened was in 1994, when Republican Frank LoBiondo won after Democrat William Hughes retired.

The last time the GOP failed to hold the seats of retiring incumbents was in 1964, when Democrat James Howard succeeded Republican James Auchincloss, and Democrat Paul Krebs followed Republican George Wallhauser.

Republicans have not won a United States Senate seat in New Jersey since 1972, when Clifford Case was re-elected to a fourth term over Paul Krebs, a former Congressman from Essex County.  Only West Virginia and Hawaii have gone longer than New Jersey without sending a Republican to the U.S. Senate; Massachusetts has also gone 36 years without a GOP Senate victory.

New Jersey has gone longer than any other state without a Republican winning a statewide election; the last GOP candidate to carry New Jersey was Christine Todd Whitman in 1997. Since that election, each of the 49 other states have elected at least one Republican statewide. If this statistic were to be limited to only races for Governor and the United States Senate, New Jersey would rank 47th -- behind Delaware (1994), Washington (1994) and West Virginia (1996).

New Jersey Democrats have not lost a race for the United States Senate since 1972, when Clifford Case defeated Paul Krebs. Only two states have a better Democratic streak: Hawaii, which has not sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since Hiram Fong won re-election in 1970, and West Virginia, where William Chapman Revercomb won in 1952.