Democratic wins in New Jersey’s legislative elections this year were fueled by near-record high spending, even before all the final totals are tallied, according to the state’s election commission.
New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) latest analysis of campaign fundraising and spending reports filed 20 days after the November election put the total spent at $70.3 million, the second highest total since 2001 and fifth highest ever when accounting for inflation.
And that’s likely not the final total, as some political groups only report their financial activities on a quarterly basis and will not report their spending from October through the end of this year until next month.
The record for most-expensive legislative election was in 2017 with a total $70.7 million spent, or $88.8 million in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Almost one seventh of this year’s spending took place in the 11th District of Monmouth County, where Democratic Sen. Vin Gopal easily won reelection and brought two Assembly running mates into office with him to unseat two Republican freshmen.
The Democratic team and independent groups backing them outspent the GOP candidates by more than four-to-one, $8 million vs. $1.9 million. This had been expected to be the closest race in the state, and Gopal’s lopsided win by more than 20 percentage points surprised many political observers.
Statewide, $51.6 million was spent in support of Democrats, compared with $18.4 million to help Republicans. Overall, Democrats picked up a net of six seats: The party recaptured the 3rd and 11th district Assembly seats lost in 2021 plus two others, and it won back the 3rd District Senate seat, as well, while losing the seat in the 12th District held by a Republican-turned-Democrat who is retiring.
Still, money didn’t always decide the race, as Democrats lost three seats in South Jersey’s 3rd District in 2021 to a slate of unknown candidates who spent less than $10,000.
More than half the money spent in this year’s general election by candidates and independent groups went to seven of the 40 legislative districts, all of them targeted as battlegrounds by one or both parties. They were the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 8th districts in South Jersey, Gopal’s 11th in Monmouth, the 16th District in Central Jersey, and the 38th in Bergen County.
Democrats and the groups supporting them outspent Republicans in six of the seven, and Democrats won all but the three seats in 2nd District. Republicans outspent Democrats in the 8th but wound up losing one Assembly seat there.
About a third of this year’s spending reported so far, or $23 million, was spent by independent groups seeking to influence the results in specific races.
The most generous of these was a new group, Brighter Future Forward, which formed less than three weeks before the election and has ties to South Jersey political boss George Norcross.
Brighter Future Forward spent almost $3.7 million to help elect Democrats in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 8th districts in South Jersey and also provided $225,000 to the shadowy group Jersey Freedom. That group only registered with ELEC 11 days before the election and reported spending $187,000 backing independent candidates for Senate and Assembly in the 4th District — whom Republicans contend were “phantom candidates” — and a Libertarian in the 2nd.
GOP officials have charged that the group’s support of these candidates was aimed only at taking votes away from the Republicans in both those races. State Sen. Vince Polistina (R-Atlantic), who won reelection to his 2nd District seat despite the Jersey Freedom money, has called for an investigation into the group.
Nine independent groups spent at least $1 million apiece and only one of those – Stronger Foundations Inc., which has ties to the Operating Engineers union – was supporting Republicans, according to ELEC. Overall, about $78 of every $100 spent by independent groups supported Democrats.
