Credit: (House Television via AP)The five Republicans vying in the June 7 primary for the right to challenge Democratic incumbent Mikie Sherrill in the 11th Congressional District range from a relatively moderate Morris County commissioner to a self-described “America First Ultra MAGA Trump Republican.”
Tayfun Selen, the Morris County official, would appear to have the edge, given he won the GOP party line in his home county and in Essex County. Combined, they make up 90% of the newly constituted district. The rest covers Little Falls, Totowa, Woodland Park and part of Wayne in Passaic County, where the Republican Party is backing former deputy prosecutor Paul DeGroot. The other candidates are Toby Anderson, Ruth McAndrew and the “MAGA” candidate Alexander Halter.
The victor will face a challenge, given the 11th District was made significantly more Democratic by last December’s redistricting: 37% of its voters are registered Democrats, outnumbering unaffiliated voters by about 2,000. And 26% are Republicans, compared with 32% Democrats and 30% Republicans before the redrawing of boundary lines. Sherrill was first elected in the 2018 New Jersey “Blue Wave” backlash to the election of former President Donald Trump. She won reelection two years ago by a seven-point margin. Sherrill also had a significant campaign account of $5.5 million as of March 31 and no primary opponent to worry about.
“Sherrill should have an easy time of it,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University and director of the FDU Poll. “The district got more Democratic and she’s managed to stay in the moderate lane. The affluent suburbs that make up much of the district have gotten much more Democratic since Trump. She also has more money than Croesus.”
Cassino said Selen is “in general, a quality candidate” who already holds office, has business connections, and a big Turkish American community in north Jersey that he can tap into. Still, Selen would need significant financial support to “mount a serious challenge” and that may be difficult to get with other nearby districts that are in play for Republicans drawing campaign donations, Cassino added.
Cassino: ‘The affluent suburbs that make up much of the district have gotten much more Democratic since Trump. [Sherrill] also has more money than Croesus.’
Having received the major party endorsements, Selen is running something of a favorite’s campaign, providing sparse information about his positions on issues on his website. Instead, he plays up his personal story as an immigrant who came to the United States with little and made a success of himself.
Tayfun Selen runs as GOP favorite
Credit: (Morris County Board of Commissioners)Selen received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Istanbul Technical University in 1992 and came to the U.S. four years later. He initially worked as a gas station attendant in Madison and now is senior vice president of administration at Lincoln Educational Services, a for-profit postsecondary vocational training company, which paid him $464,000 last year, according to his financial disclosure form filed with the Clerk of the House. He became a citizen in 2008 and earned an MBA from Montclair State University three years later. Selen, who also is a member of the New Jersey Board of Nursing, lives in Chatham Township with his wife and daughter.
He points to his experience at the local and county levels to bolster his fiscal conservatism, saying he cut property taxes when he served as mayor of Chatham Township and he voted for the county budget that held taxes level. While his positions on federal issues are mostly a mystery, in a video on his Facebook page, he used some of the buzzwords often uttered by Republicans campaigning this year.
“I want to make sure we, as a nation, choose the right path forward,” he said, “a path of free market capitalism, not crushing socialism; a path that respects the rule of law, not excuses; a path that unites us as Americans, not divides us by our differences; a path of freedom and opportunity not government control and cancel culture.”
Selen did not appear at the League of Women Voters’ online debate held May 11 because he was traveling to his daughter’s college graduation. In a statement he submitted to the debate, Selen said he wants to “be a voice against the woke socialist Democrats that are ripping apart the American dream.”
Paul DeGroot opposes ‘leftist ideology’
Credit: (Pauldegrootcares)Also with a scheduling conflict and not appearing at that debate was DeGroot, who lives with his wife and two children in Montville. DeGroot got a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from the University of Maryland in 1989 and a law degree three years later from Widener University School of Law. He spent 25 years in the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, most recently as chief assistant in the forfeiture, civil litigation and Open Public Records Act unit. He retired last May at a salary of almost $160,000 and is collecting a monthly pension of $8,660. He is currently practicing criminal defense law out of an office in Newark.
According to his campaign website, DeGroot supports expanding Medicare benefits to include eyeglass and dental coverage. This could be paid for by cutting waste and money that supports undocumented immigrants, he says.
DeGroot says he “opposes indoctrinating our students with leftist ideology.” He also is against government shutdowns of businesses and schools and COVID-19 “edicts … that infringe on personal liberty.” His website devotes a section to crime, where he expresses contempt for “liberal bail reform and other attempts at ‘social justice,’” saying these have only emboldened individuals to commit more crimes.
Selen had outraised DeGroot by a few thousand dollars as of mid-May, the most recent campaign data reported. He has also spent less, so Selen had about $38,000 more in the bank than DeGroot going into the last leg of the campaign. The only other Republican who reported raising any money to the Federal Election Commission was Toby Anderson, who had about $21,000 on hand as of May 18.
Toby Anderson plans to move into the district
Credit: (Tobyforcongress)Anderson is CEO of Ornatono Services, LLC and chief consultant with EOM Services, Inc., according to his LinkedIn page. His campaign website describes Ornatono as a small home health-care business. A married father of three, Anderson’s personal Facebook page lists him as living in Washington Township, Bergen County, which is not in the 11th District, but he said he is planning to move into the district this summer. He is an Army veteran, having served three tours of duty in Iraq. He got a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University in Russian and political science in 1997 and a law degree from Tulane University Law School three years later.
The issues Anderson cites on his webpage are similar to those other Republicans are campaigning on. He says government should leave many decisions up to parents, opposes mask and COVID-19 child vaccine mandates and other educational policies oft-mentioned by far-right candidates. He calls on Congress to protect the free speech rights of all Americans. He also supports resuming construction of the wall on the border with Mexico and increasing personnel and resources there to deal with illegal immigration.
“We have to secure the border, rebuild, complete the wall, reimburse the states that have spent money on it and bring a secure border because we have an enemy that they have said we have: Russia,” Anderson said during the May 11 debate.
Despite the district’s location in northern New Jersey, the GOP candidates spent a lot of time talking about illegal immigration and finishing the border wall during that debate.
Ruth McAndrew, Alexander Halter
“The border never should have been opened, never should at all, especially during a pandemic,” said McAndrew, a hospice triage nurse who lives in Randolph and operates Miller’s Hill Farm with her husband of 37 years. “We need to back up the border patrol, back up ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) … And we’ve got to rebuild that wall. It’s criminal what’s going on.”
Also during the debate, Halter, a producer at SportsNet New York who lives in Denville, said that if Republicans take control of Congress after the midterm elections, “the first article of impeachment is Joe Biden enabling our border to be invaded.” He said the U.S. is sending more money to Ukraine for its defense in the war with Russia than on policing the Mexican border.
“The border is absolutely disgusting,” said Halter, who studied communications and journalism at Syracuse University from 1991 to 1996. “We’re constantly hearing about defending the sovereignty and the sacredness of Ukraine. What about our border?”
Halter has no campaign website, no financial disclosure form on the Clerk of the House website and no campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission. In a post on his Twitter page, Halter blamed the current shortage of baby formula on “an economic war with Russia that we’re being penalized for.”
McAndrew also has neither a financial disclosure nor a campaign filing. On her campaign website, she pledges to fight for greater Medicare coverage for home health care and oppose free child care for all and vaccine mandates.
