Rush Holt

Franklin Mayor Brian D. Levine is considering a bid for the Republican nomination for Governor in 2009

Franklin Township Mayor Brian D. Levine is thinking about getting in the race for the Republican nomination for Governor, and he's won twice in a heavily Democratic town. Levine is supposed to be smart, hardworking, and a pretty good retail campaigner. But few pundits think the obscure certified public accountant from Somerset County can win a statewide primary.

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews' 201,163 votes in the 2004 general election is the most received by any House candidate in New Jersey history

Republican Christopher Smith received 198,446 votes in his bid for re-election to a fifteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. That was the most total votes received by any House candidate in the 2008 cycle, and the third highest total votes in state history. (Smith's 2004 votes also gives him the #6 slot.)

The record for the most all-time votes goes to Rob Andrews in 2004.

Democrat Rush Holt, who won 181,189 votes, makes the list of the Top Ten All-Time Votegetters in New Jersey Congressional races; Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen, whose 2004 totals put him second on the all-time list, is also ranked #10, thanks to the 177,039 votes he received last week.

The Top Ten All-Time Votegetters in New Jersey Congressional races:

John Adler won a seat in Congress eighteen years after his first House race.

Now it seems trendy to run for Congress, lose, then spend a lot of years in state government before finally making it to Washington.  In 2006, Albio Sires won an open House seat twenty years after his first attempt.  Sires had challenged U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini as a Republican in 1986; he later won local office in West New York, and after switching parties in 1999, he beat an incumbent Assemblyman in the Democratic primary.  He became Assembly Speaker after the 2001 election, and went to Congress after Bob Menendez joined the United States Senate.

Both of New Jersey's freshmen Congressman had previously lost House races.  John Adler ran against Jim Saxton in 1990 and lost 60%-40%.  A year later, despite one of the two biggest Republican landslides in state political history, he ousted four-term GOP State Sen. Lee Laskin.  Leonard Lance first ran for Congress in 1996, when Richard Zimmer gave up his seat to run for U.S. Senate; he finished third in the GOP primary, behind Michael Pappas and John Bennett. Lance moved from the Assembly to the Satate Senate in 2001, and became Minority Leader in 2004.

Congressional Candidate Alan Bateman (NJ-12) and Rep. Rush Holt will debate at Rider University this Thursday.

It’s not exactly a surprise, but the incumbent Congressmen in safe districts who have statewide aspirations tend to have the largest war chests.

Take, for instance, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch).  His Republican opponent, former Judge Robert McLeod, didn’t even raise the $5,000 that would require him to fill out a report with the Federal Election Commission.  But Pallone is raising and spending money anyway, raking in $302,139 last quarter for a total of $2.18 million this election cycle.  He has $3.36 million on hand – the largest war chest in Congress – and spent $304,000 this quarter.

That money is not being spent against McLeod.  The expenditures listed in the FEC report includes a $189,015 cable television ad buy.  The commercial, which began on Tuesday, is playing all over the state north of Interstate 195, in places well beyond Pallone’s district.

The New Jersey delegation's vote on the bailout bill was close, and did not occur along party lines.

But while there were some odd vote combinations, with liberal Congressmen like U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn) voting the same way as his conservative neighbor, Scott Garrett (R-Wantage), they tended to cite different reasons.

Ultimately, New Jersey Congressmen voted against the bill by a 7-6 margin. None, however, enthusiastically supported it. Nor did any of its detractors express glee at its downfall, and some expressed more openness to voting for a new compromise package than others.

By far the most vociferous opponent of the bailout was Garrett, who yesterday took to the floor and excoriated his colleagues who supported it.

DENVER -- New York Governor David Paterson this morning said he was a “great admirer of the State of New Jersey.”

Paterson came a long way across the Denver Metropolitan area to speak to the New Jersey delegation at the Inverness Hotel in Englewood, Co, arriving close to an hour late after watching Gov. Corzine speak to his own delegation. After being introduced by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-Princeton), Paterson joked about the distance.

“I am a great admirer of the state of New Jersey, and I will come to any event that’s schedule that any of you invite me to,” he said. “I just want you to know that this facility is further away from the Sheraton than any geographic point in New Jersey is from New York. So if I can get here, I can get to your event.”

So far, Republican Alan Bateman's congressional campaign has had no more of an impact than any of the other long-shot congressional candidates in the state.

Bateman, the Holmdel deputy mayor, is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-Princeton). As of June 30, he had only raised $7,575, and had $6,487 on hand (and owed $5,325 in debt).

But according to Bateman's campaign, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) sees something promising, and has committed to making a $5,000 donation to Bateman from his PAC.

The Boston Globe has a story this morning on Joshua DuBois, a former aide to Rep. Rush Holt.  The 25-year-old DuBois is now the religious affairs director for Barack Obama's campaign for president.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) basks in victory on Election Night in Newark.

The trouncing Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) gave U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) last week sends the South Jersey congressman to the back of the line among those Democratic members of the congressional delegation intent on succeeding the 84-year old senator.

It depends on the region where the question is asked, of course, but among those eyeballing Lautenberg’s seat, the names of U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6), U.S. Rush Holt (D-12), and U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-9) surface more frequently than U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8), U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-10), and U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D- 13).