With the June primary one day away, PolitickerNJ Editor Darryl Isherwood says he expects an average turnout at the polls. He discussed the key primary races with NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider.
Isherwood said he doesn’t see a lot of enthusiasm for this year’s primary. “There’s a couple big ones, but in general primaries other than presidential primaries, don’t spark a lot of interest and I just don’t think people are rushing out,” he said.
Mitt Romney has already gained enough votes to with the Republican nomination for president. While there have been some Ron Paul signs cropping up in New Jersey, Isherwood said he doesn’t think the state’s voters will come out enough in support of Paul to send Romney a message.
Isherwood called the ninth district race between Bill Pascrell and Steve Rothman one of the most exciting races in a while. “It has not been a pretty race,” Isherwood said. “These guys started out, by all accounts, as friends and I doubt there’s going to be much dinner dates after this.”
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Isherwood said the negativity came from the Rothman camp. “I think his campaign went negative from the start, from the very beginning and I’m not 100 percent sure why. Obviously there are people who thought it was a good idea. I think that dynamic is what a lot of people are talking about in this race,” he said. “It was Rothman’s to lose. Pascrell by at least some accounts has gained some ground and I think if Rothman goes on to win the race, that cures all ills. Nobody’s going to complain about the campaign. If he loses, I think there’s going to be a lot of people second guessing the campaign tactic.”
If Rothman stayed in the newly redrawn fifth district, including his home town of Fair Lawn, Isherwood said he would’ve had a chance against Scott Garrett. “Garrett is a very, very conservative guy so I think he [Rothman] would have had a contingent of people who were looking for a less conservative guy,” Isherwood said. “I think his bigger problem there was if he had knocked off Garrett, he would’ve been facing a challenge from a moderate Bergen County Republican every two years for the next decade.”
The other major race in the primary is in the 10th district where six Democrats are running to take the seat of the late Donald Payne Sr. Isherwood said Donald Payne Jr. has the upper hand in the race because of the name recognition and the support of the establishment despite the recent endorsement of Ronald Rice by The Star-Ledger, which heavily criticized Payne.
Isherwood also discussed the recent confirmation hearing of Bruce Harris, who the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected as a state Supreme Court justice. He said Sen. Jennifer Beck stood in for Sen. Michael Doherty, who was in Maryland at the time. According to Isherwood, Doherty purposely scheduled an out-of-state engagement so he didn’t have to vote at the confirmation hearing.
“There was a sense that he didn’t feel comfortable voting yes with the rest of the Republicans on the committee but he didn’t want to buck the Christie administration by voting no so he took powder and went to Maryland,” Isherwood said, saying the word was the very conservative senator didn’t want to vote to confirm an openly gay justice. “We couldn’t get in touch with him that day so I didn’t get his side of the story but when we talked to a couple people connected to it, they said yeah he was given permission.”