Key New Jersey Districts Take Focus for 2018 Election

NEWARK, N.J. (CN) – With all the talk of a Blue Wave this midterms, the color in two crucial New Jersey districts may be purple.

In North and Central Jersey, the 11th and 7th Districts are two traditionally Republican seats on which Democrats have set their sights in a bid to retake the U.S. House of Representatives. Polling by the Cook Political Report show the 11th District as leaning Democratic and the 7th District as a Republican-leaning toss-up.

In the 11th — a district that is home to parts of Morris, Essex, Passaic and Sussex counties — the changing political landscape is not lost on Doug Brookes, a 42-year-old resident of Rockaway Township.

“I think there’s a lot more enthusiasm for the Democratic Party then in years past … even at the local level,” Brookes said in an interview during a meeting of Rockaway Republicans.

“We’re a Republican town, we’re a Republican county, but like they were saying here earlier, that you get a little foot in the door, all of a sudden they feel that they’re entitled.”

Over the past three years, Democrats in Morris County have boasted that they have picked up more than 20 municipal seats and lost none in the 11th District.

“I hate to say it, but it kind of mimics the national arena,” Brookes said.

In addition to firing up traditional Democrats, activist groups and canvassers are focused on snagging the crucial independent and unaffiliated voters in those districts.

Unaffiliated voters far outnumber Democrats and Republicans, according to data from the New Jersey Division of Elections released this summer.

11th District: Last Stand for Morris County Republicans?

With a very red record, the 11th District came into play for Democrats earlier this year when Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen announced his retirement after two decades holding the seat.

Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill is now vying to flip the district for Democrats, going up against six-term New Jersey Assemblyman Jay Webber for the Republicans.

Last week as the Morris County Republican Committee gathered at the American Legion Post 344 in Rockaway, chairman Ron DeFilippis said he has heard from prominent party members that the Republican House majority may come down to Lance and Webber winning their elections.

“Just a little bit of pressure,” he joked to the crowd of about 30.

Local candidates that night also mentioned the tightening race. Ann Grossi, running for re-election as Morris County clerk, said Democrats have ramped up their efforts during this midterm. “We cannot let them win this,” she told the crowd. “If they win this, we are in trouble in Morris County.”

One of the candidates for freeholder, Deborah Smith portrayed the fight for the 11th district as a last stand against a Democratic shift in Morris County.

“If we can push them back in this election, maybe they won’t come back,” she said. Smith later added after some grumbling about immigration that “if Morris County goes Democrat, the state will be a sanctuary state.”

Another concern that has emerged for Rockaway Republicans is keeping everyone on the party line. In August, Rockaway councilman and mayoral candidate Mike Puzio endorsed Sherrill, saying his town needed a “leader with a proven record of working with people from both parties.”

Puzio, a Republican, also said “the letter that comes after my name is less important to Mikie than the fact that I am a resident of this community.”

Puzio’s endorsement ruffled feathers at the American Legion, where one member even suggested the town apologize to Webber’s campaign.

A Stark Contrast Between Candidates

Sherrill, a former Navy pilot, easily won her primary and made headlines earlier this year for a fundraising blitz. To date she has more than $7 million in her campaign coffers, which were also recently bolstered by Mike Bloomberg who put $1.87 million toward an ad campaign.

Webber, a 46-year-old assemblyman, has had high-profile assists from Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway.

Speaking to the Republican candidate’s record on the environment as an assemblyman, Jeff Tittel, a Democrat in the 11th District who serves as director of the NJ Sierra Club, said, “Webber makes Frelinghuysen look like a tree hugger.”

Webber’s hard-right views on certain social issues and immigration — and his strong association with President Trump, who called him “outstanding” in a tweet — seems to have galvanized some on the left who had not engaged politically previous years.

“I’m not a particularly political animal,” said Jennifer Anne Moses, a 59-year-old freelance writer who has started canvassing for Sherrill and plans to work a phone bank on Election Day.

“I hate this stuff,” she said in a phone interview. “I don’t like knocking on doors, but you have to do something.”

Moses, who has lived in Montclair for 10 years and has three grown children, said the 11th District is right-leaning but that most of the Republicans she knows are “old-school Nixon Republicans” who believe in lower taxes but are not hardliners on social issues like Webber.

“I’ve gotten in plenty of arguments with them in the past … but this time the argument is that they don’t think they have a place in the Republican Party,” she said. “Everything comes back to the filth and rot that is coming out of the White House.”

Saily Avelenda, executive director of the NJ 11th for Change activist group, agreed that the 11th District is not known for socially conservative views. “The 11th District is not that kind of district,” she said.

Avelenda — who made national headlines earlier this year when Congressman Frelinghuysen sent her employer Lakeland Bank a fundraising note saying “one of the ringleaders works at your bank!” — noted the importance of unaffiliated voters in the district.

“There is no way you win a campaign without targeting the unaffiliated voter,” she said in an interview, noting that Frelinghuysen won re-election by 19 points in 2016 but that President Trump carried the district by a single point.

Avelenda noted the gap between registered Democrats and Republicans is now hovering around 7,000 in the district, and that roughly 40 percent of the district electorate was unaffiliated or independent in 2016.

“There was a poor ground game in 2016 by many candidates,” she said. “Canvassing is the only thing that brings out votes.”

Webber still has support among Republicans, though, who see him as the heir apparent to Frelinghuysen.

“He’s got big shoes to fill, but I think for many years now I’ve actually thought Jay was going to be the candidate that was taking over his spot when [Freylinghuesen] retired,” Brookes said.

A father of six who has known Webber for years, Brookes said he sees a kindred spirit in the Republican candidate.

“You know, he’s got a big family,” Brookes said. “I personally have a big family, so I know the time and dedication that he does put in to his constituents.”

Last weel Webber’s large family faced an overt threat when the campaign received a menacing letter that referred to Webber’s seven children as “unlucky 7.”

7th District: More Likely to Remain Red

Democrats face tougher sledding to flip the seat in the 7th District, which encompasses parts of Morris, Essex, Somerset, Union and Warren counties.

In 2016, Republican Rep. Leonard Lance won re-election by more than 10 points, and is viewed by many as a moderate. His opponent Tom Malinowski meanwhile is considered a newcomer to local politics, seeking office after working in the Obama administration.

Tittel, the NJ Sierra Club director, is a resident of the 7th District. Downplaying the Republican streak of his compatriots in the 7th, he noted that the district voted for both Hillary Clinton in the presidential election and Kim Guadagno for governor in 2016. “The Republican Party doesn’t represent the people in those districts anymore,” he said. “It is the party of Trump.”

John Flores, who works for NJ 7 Citizens 4 Change, a Democratic-leaning political action committee, said the “Trump effect” may sway a large portion of the unaffiliated and moderate GOP voters to the blue side of the ticket.

In the 2018 primary, Flores noted, turnout among Democrats in the 7th was up nearly 400 percent from 2016, second in the state. Flores said his group is “trying to reach outside the activist bubble,” however, to sway unaffiliated voters and Republicans who may have soured on Trump.

“I think there are good, principled conservative voters who may have pinched their nose in the voting booth in 2016, but they’ve had enough of the insanity,” he said.