Credit: (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)New Jersey’s midterm elections this year remain relatively calm, in stark contrast to scores of volatile races across the country where ideological brawls rage and the threat of violence bubbles below the surface. The net results of those contests could ultimately determine the future of the Republican Party, the viability of former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential aspirations and, according to President Joe Biden, “the heart and soul of democracy.”
Garden State residents don’t need to look far to get a glimpse of a radically divided America gearing up for the final sprint to November. Pennsylvania, a perennial swing state, has again come to fore as the nation’s preeminent battleground state. It voted twice for Barack Obama, for Trump in 2016, and then for Biden in 2020 — all by very narrow margins. Both Biden and Trump made trips to Pennsylvania last week to stake their claims.
Trump and his legion of “MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies,” Biden said on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Two days later, Trump fired back in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania — his first rally since his Mar-a-Lago home was raided by the FBI on Aug. 8 — calling Biden “an enemy of the state” and his FBI and Department of Justice “vicious monsters.”
Predicting political weather
Predicting elections these days has become akin to predicting hurricanes. A few months ago, pollsters and pundits were uniformly projecting that a Category 5 Republican wave would carry them to dominance in both houses in Congress, currently controlled by Democrats. But in recent days, the GOP hurricane has been downgraded. A string of Biden legislative successes, dropping gas prices and strong job growth have offset Republican gains achieved by their focus on a shaky economy and the highest inflation in four decades.
A Wall Street Journal poll released last week shows Democrats holding a slight edge over Republicans, 47% to 44%, when voters were asked which party they would support in their congressional district if the election were held today. In March, Republicans held a five-point advantage.
Why? The Democratic uptick comes from increased support among independents, women and younger voters. The poll shows Democrats gaining a three-point lead with independent voters, while Republicans enjoyed a 12-point lead in March. Much of that shift is tied to a surge in enthusiasm among abortion rights proponents.
“Republicans were cruising, and Democrats were having a hard time,” said Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who conducted the survey with Democrat John Anzalone. “It’s almost like the abortion issue came along and was kind of like a defibrillator to Democrats.”
Perhaps even more telling, an Aug. 21 NBC News poll found that “threats to democracy” has overtaken the “cost of living” as the most important issue facing the country, which is how Biden is framing the midterms.
“America is at an inflection point — one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that’s to come after,” Biden said in his Philadelphia speech. “And now America must choose: to move forward or to move backwards … To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness.” Recent polls show that voters in both parties agree that the future of America is at stake but assign blame to the opposing party.
Another factor contributing to the narrowing margins in midterm races is an increasing awareness of Trump’s legal exposure on several fronts, including the recent FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, where they seized classified and secret documents Trump had removed from the White House.
GOP’s presidential baggage
“The midterms were supposed to be a referendum on Joe Biden. Now it’s turned into a referendum on Trump.” said Carl, Golden, political columnist and senior analyst for the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University.“The Republicans are not handling it well … Now they’re saddled with Trump and all his baggage. If they were smart, they would have jettisoned this guy a year ago. They should have told him, ‘You’re history. This is our party now.’”
Overall, the cadre of Trump-endorsed candidates fared well in this year’s primaries. In 10 key Senate races, eight of the GOP candidates are in lockstep with the MAGA agenda. But now doubts are growing about their chances in November’s general elections, as was voiced recently by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” he told NBC News. “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean believes Republicans will likely fall short in the Senate for the very same reason McConnell cites. “If they lose the Senate, it’s mainly because of Trump and the people he supported … who are not good candidates.”
Both Kean and Golden see Republicans likely taking over the House — but hedge their prediction based on shifts in political winds that are certain to come. Kean warns, however, that the margins of victory in both houses is critical for Republicans.
“It’s very important as to how they take it because both parties now have wings that are half crazy, Kean said. “What you’ve got to do as a governing majority is have enough people who are not half crazy in order to govern,” he said. “It’s very important that the Republicans get a good enough control, so it won’t allow for anybody to dictate policy who’s a little crazy.”
Republican leaders have backed several right-wing, Trump-loyal congressional candidates — three of whom attended the Stop the Steal protest at the Capitol on Jan. 6. If those candidates were to win, it would bolster the already influential far-right faction of the Republican House caucus.
Shifting political landscape
Pennsylvania has been transformed by dramatic political shifts over the past decade. While the wealthy suburbs have swung sharply toward the Democrats, the post-industrial cities and towns in the state’s interior have evolved from slightly Republican to overwhelmingly Republican.
Two Trump-backed candidates in Pennsylvania are engaged in nasty, high-profile races that are considered crucial to each party. There the Republicans worry their candidate for governor is too MAGA, while their U.S. Senate candidate is not MAGA enough.
In one of the most closely watched gubernatorial races of the year, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a self-described progressive Democrat, is facing state Sen. Doug Mastriano, an unapologetic MAGA devotee, in the race to replace Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is stepping down due to term limits. This contest illustrates this year’s GOP conundrum: Can extreme Trumpism prevail in a swing state general election?
Credit: (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)Mastriano is a prominent evangelical and retired Army colonel, who is a product of Trumpism. After a failed run for Congress in 2018, he was elected the state Senate in 2019, establishing himself as an ultra-MAGA soldier. In July, Mastriano raised money at a “Patriots Arise” conference, held in Gettysburg and sponsored by a pair of QAnon activists, where he was awarded a “Sword of David.” State Republican officials who initially considered Mastriano too extreme to win have now largely thrown him their support.
Credit: (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)Mastriano also chartered buses to transport protestors to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, where he was part of a crowd that appears to have crossed barricades. The House Jan. 6 committee has subpoenaed Mastriano for information about how he participated in events that led to the insurrection.
Though Shapiro has outspent Mastriano by a 10-1 margin, airing a barrage of TV attack ads denouncing Mastriano as an extremist who supports banning all abortions, Mastriano has remained within striking distance. In the most recent survey (Aug. 29), Emerson College Polling had Shapiro within the poll’s margin of error and with 6% undecided. An Aug. 25 poll by Franklin and Marshall had Shapiro with an 11-pont lead; an Aug. 21 Trafalgar poll gave him a 4-point lead.
The election that wasn’t
Mastriano is an unapologetic election denier who worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Mastriano presided over a state Senate hearing in which Ellis and Trump campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani testified and shared false information about fraud in the election.
On the campaign trail, Mastriano has said that the state Legislature (currently controlled by Republicans) has the power to appoint presidential electors, and as governor, he would hold the power to “decertify” election machines. In June, he hired election denier and former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis to be a senior adviser on his campaign.
Much of the focus nationally has been on the partisan fate of Congress, but there are critical state-level contests in play as well, and they carry potential high-stakes consequences. Republicans control the governor’s mansion and both legislative houses in 23 states; Democrats control just 14 (New Jersey is one of them).
Governors hold significant power in how their state’s elections are run, counted and certified. Mastriano is one of four Republican candidates who claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump in critical swing states. Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin are the others, raising speculation they will try to sway election results in 2024 if they win in November.
In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, as is the case in New Jersey. Mastriano has not announced the person he plans to select, but has vowed that his pick would implement major reforms and require everyone to “reregister” to vote, an act that would violate the National Voter Registration Act.
Surrendering the statehouse
Shapiro has repeatedly emphasized that a Mastriano win would give Republicans complete control of the Statehouse, and the ability to wreak havoc on how state elections are run, tabulated and certified. It’s a theme embraced by Biden.
“We can’t let the integrity of our elections be undermined,” Biden said in the Philadelphia speech. “We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country,” he added, referencing the January 6 insurrection.
The Pennsylvania race has also caught the attention of New Jersey native and lifelong Republican Michael Chertoff, who was secretary of Homeland Security under former President George W. Bush. Chertoff was spotted at a political event for Shapiro in deep red Pike County, where he told Politico, “I believe he stands for the values of rule of law, our constitution and freedom and democracy, which are the foundation of our nation.” Asked to expand on the statement, Chertoff told NJ Spotlight News, “What I said sums it up.”
Mastriano has sponsored bills to allow school employees to carry guns on school property, that would initiate a program to send newly arriving illegal immigrants to Biden’s home state of Delaware. He has used far-right social media platform Gab.com to engage potential voters. And Mastriano, a retired Army colonel, posed in a Confederate uniform for a faculty photo at the Army War College.
He also has made it clear that he believes in no exceptions for an abortion ban.
Abortion a top issue
Like many other Democratic candidates across the country, Shapiro has made abortion his No. 1 campaign issue. Growing backlash from the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) that overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that asserted a federal constitutional right to an abortion. Support for abortion access among Pennsylvania voters reached an all-time high this month, according to the Franklin & Marshall College poll released last week.
The WSJ poll has 60% of those surveyed saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up 5 percentage points from March. More than half of voters say the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has made them more likely to vote. (A July Quinnipiac Poll reported Americans support Roe, 63% to 31%.) The court ruling was especially relevant for white, suburban women, a coveted demographic with a history of switching between the two parties in recent elections. They now say they would back a Democratic candidate over a Republican, 52% to 40%.
Nowhere is the pursuit of the suburban, white woman vote more in play than in Pennsylvania. Shapiro says he wants to maintain Pennsylvania’s current law: Abortion is legal up to about 24 weeks of gestation, with later-term abortions permitted in case of a medical emergency.
Shapiro is not alone in his abortion strategy. Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Texas, Georgia and Nevada aired ads taking aim at their opponents’ rigid anti-abortion positions. Democrats have spent about $30 million on more than 100 television ads specifically mentioning abortion since a draft document in the Dobbs case was leaked in early May, according to AdImpact, which tracks political media buys.
The tactic has gained traction in House and Senate races also.
Democrats were heartened by the surprise Aug. 31 victory by Mary Peltola, a Democrat who defeated MAGA Republican Sarah Palin in a special House election to fill the seat made vacant by the death of Rep. Don Young, the longest serving Republican (50 years) in House history. Peltola bucked conventional political wisdom in a red district in a red state by advocating for abortion rights, in contrast to Palin’s fervent anti-abortion stance.
That election came on the heels of another hard-fought special election in New York’s 19th District in the Hudson Valley. On Aug. 24, Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in a special election in which he made abortion a key issue.
“New Jersey is a right-to-choose state in a right-to choose country. Most people support a woman’s right to choose,” said Kean, a Republican who supports abortion rights. “People want to ensure that’s in place, and they want to make sure that nobody’s elected to Congress who’s going to go against that right.”
Democrats are also putting abortion in play in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, which is widely considered the Democrats’ best chance to add a seat to their fragile 50-50 control of the Senate. There, Trump-backed TV doctor Mehmet Oz is in a tight race with Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. While Fetterman ran unopposed, Oz squeaked out a tough primary victory, credited largely to Trump’s last-minute endorsement in April.
Credit: (AP Photo/Ryan Collerd)Trump issued a statement praising Oz as “Pro-Life, very strong on Crime, the Border, Election Fraud, our Great Military, and our Vets, Tax Cuts, and will always fight for and support our under-siege Second Amendment.” But Oz is not a typical MAGA loyalist.
Trump’s endorsement of Oz, however, was met with loud displeasure with MAGA Republicans who lashed out at the former president on social media, questioning Oz’ conservative bona-fides. He was even booed and jeered by the MAGA loyal at a Trump rally in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, after the endorsement.
Unlike Mastriano, Oz has been trying to distance himself from Trump now that he survived a tough primary, though he did come on stage and shake Trump’s hand at last week’s rally in Wilkes Barre. Oz’s transition to the general election highlights the tightrope many Trump-endorsed candidates have attempted to walk — embrace the former president when it counts,
Fetterman, in the meantime, had his own issues. Suffering a near fatal stroke in May, he still won his primary handily, but didn’t return to the campaign trail until Aug. 12. He used the time in seclusion to pounce on the veracity of his opponents’ Pennsylvania residency, claiming his real home was the six-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 9,000-square foot mansion in Cliffside, New Jersey, where he has lived for 20 years. Oz moved in late 2020 into a house owned by his wife’s family in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Athyn. In July, he noted in a Tweet that Oz filmed a campaign video at that New Jersey home.
New Jersey jokes
Fetterman doubled down and turned much of his campaign into a nonstop New Jersey joke,
He flew a plane to fly over the New Jersey coast with a banner that read “Hey Dr. Oz! Welcome home to NJ! Love, John.” He enlisted Garden State celebrities to join in the nonstop troll.
“I heard that you moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to look for a new job,” said Nicole LaValle, better known as “Snooki” from MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” in a Fetterman campaign video addressing Oz. “I know you’re away from home and you’re in a new place, but Jersey will not forget you.”
Credit: via TwitterHe also released a Tweet by actor-musician Steven (Miami Steve) van Zandt, of “Sopranos” and E Street Band fame. “Yo! Dr. Oz.! Stevie VZ here. Waddya doing in Pennsylvania? Everybody knows you live in New Jersey and you’re just using your in-laws address over there … No one wants to se you get embarrassed. So come on back to New Jersey where you belong. We’ll have some fun. We’ll go to the beach.”
Oz dismissed Fetterman’s attacks, telling The Associated Press, “People don’t really care where I’m from. They care what I stand for.”