Election Recap

By Art Gallagher

From the top of the ticket to the bottom, the Monmouth GOP under the leadership of Chairman Joe Oxley, earned a resounding and undeniable endorsement from the voters of Monmouth County last Tuesday.

On the top of the ticket, the three Republican candidates for Congress crushed their competition. The combined Monmouth County results of Congressman Chris Smith (CD-4), Mayor Anna Little (CD-6) and Scott Sipprelle (CD-12) were 109,151 to 68,020 over their Democratic opponents, a margin on 62% to 38%. Unfortunately, due to gerrymandering, Monmouth County is represented by only one Republican in Congress and two Democrats.

On the bottom of the ballot, in the 24 municipalities where there were contests, Republicans won in 15 towns, Democrats in 8 and one town split. In the 19 towns where there were no contests 14 are controlled by Republicans, 2 by Democrats, 2 are non-partisan. One town, Oceanport, had one Republican and one Democrat running uncontested.

The heart of the ticket, county candidates Sheriff Shaun Golden, Freeholder Rob Clifton and Freeholder-elect Tom Arnone worked as if they were behind from the beginning of the campaign until the end. They ran on their records and made their case. The voters chose them each with pluralities of over 35,000 votes.

Even with these results, there are some who continue to whine or snipe about Chairman Oxley. Those people should look beyond their personal agendas to the big picture. Congratulations to Chairman Oxley, to the team he has built and the teams he has empowered.

The losses in CD 6 & 12 were disappointing for many who worked hard on those campaigns. This was the year to take down Frank Pallone and Rush Holt. Coming closer than anyone has ever come before does not lessen the sting.

The optimism in 6 and 12 was predicated in the assumption that Independents would break for Republicans and that Democrats would not be motivated to turnout. Governor Christie’s victories in the districts last year were the original basis of the optimism. Overall dissatisfaction with the Obama administration and national polls showing a large enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans spurred the optimism that Democratic turnout would be suppressed.

Polls showing the congressional races close woke the Pallone and Holt camps up. Particularly Adam Geller’s poll for the Little camp that showed Little within 1 point of defeating Pallone. “You never should have released that poll,” one Democratic insider said in a friendly post-mortem, “half of our team scoffed at the poll, the other half said ‘so what if its not true, something is happening nationally, we can’t take any chances.” It was then that both Pallone and Holt stepped up their negative ads and prepared their GOTV efforts.

The ads worked. Both Little’s and Sipprelle’s unfavorable ratings increased in the Monmouth University polls released the week before the election. The Democratic GOTV efforts, particularly in the cities of Plainfield and Trenton were the electoral equivalent of shock and awe.

Monmouth County has yet to release town by town numbers, making an accounting for Little’s under performance in the Monmouth portion of the district difficult. Long Branch and Asbury Park did not have local races. Thus none of the results in those cities are posted on the county website . In Neptune Township there was 3150 under votes in the Township Committee race for the Democratic strong hold. That means there were 3150 voters who cast a ballot but did not vote in the local race. It is a safe bet that Long Branch, Asbury Park and Neptune Township account for Little winning Monmouth by only 4%, while Smith won his portion of the county by over 50 % and Sipprelle by 24%.