DCCC upgrades 5th district race
By Wally EdgeThe Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has added New Jersey's fifth district to their "Red to Blue" fundaising program "once thought to be out of reach." The Republican incumbent, Scott Garrett, faces Dennis Shulman, a blind Rabbi who has run an aggressive and surprisingly well-financed campaign in a district that hasn't elected a Democratic Congressman since 1978. But the Red to Blue list is clearly not the DCCC's first-tier campaigns, and inclusion in the program doesn't assure any meaningful campaign dollars or substantial political support and includes over sixty House races nationally where Democrats aren't completely optimistic. Josh Zeitz, who is challenging fifteen-term incumbent Christopher Smith in the fourth district, was added to the Red to Blue list in September. Smith is still viewed as a safe bet for re-election.
Garrett won the seat in 2002 when eleven-term Republican Marge Roukema retired (he had run close races against Roukema in the 1998 and 2000 GOP primaries). He has won comfortably against Anne Summers (2002), Anne Wolfe (2004) and Paul Stuart Aronsohn (2006). While pundits don't expect Shulman to beat Garrett, there is a chance that this may be the closest general election of Garrett's political career.
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