As Election Day draws closer, the Senate race in the 3rd Legislative District is heating up. Republican incumbent Ed Durr, who defeated Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney in 2021, is defending his seat against Democrat John Burzichelli, who represented the district in the Assembly for two decades.

Durr has drawn criticism, including from fellow Republicans for his attacks on Burzichelli. “The social media posts by Senator Ed Durr were offensive and unacceptable. They don’t represent us or what we believe in any way,” GOP candidates in the 4th and 8th districts said in a joint statement.

“I think what really got us started were some of these really outrageous things that Ed Durr said on Facebook about abortion, about women keeping their legs closed, all this kind of stuff that really is beyond the pale and Democrats feel that they’ve got a real albatross that they can hang around the necks of other Republicans that’s not defensible,” says Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.