Democrats oust Republicans in Assembly’s 11th District
TRENTON — In maybe the biggest upset of Tuesday’s legislative races, Democratic challengers have ousted both Republican incumbents representing the Shore’s 11th District in the state Assembly. Democrats JoAnn Downey and Eric Houghtaling defeated Republican Assemblywomen Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Casagrande, according to the Associated Press. It’s the first time since 1991 that Democrats have…
More from my site
In LD 11, Angelini and Casagrande trailing Houghtaling and Downey
Asbury Park Press Endorses Angelini and Casagrande in LD 11
Report: Gopal Considering Another Run For Assembly
Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider Endorses Angelini and Casagrande in LD 11
An Open Letter to Democrats in New Jersey
Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider Endorses Republicans Beck, Angelini and Casagrande
Democrats spent $1.5 million to defeat Angelini and Casagrande
Angelini Concedes LD 11 Loss
Zipprich and McMillian To Challenge Angelini and Casagrande in LD 11
Zipprich Has More Campaign Cash Than Angelini and Casagrande Combined
What a stunning (but not surprising) loss for Chairman Golden. He is already blaming outside big money. That is hogwash. The loss rests squarely with him. Other than the JOB debacle year we have held all legislative seats for decades. Last year he ran a brutal campaign and now again caught sleeping at the wheel. Yes John and Christine won but big deal. That is a give. We won Red Bank because the Democrats blew it and he failed to make any gains in Marlboro with a paper tiger like Hornik. Golden was an untested, rookie when he showed up. The Sheriffs job landed in his lap. He was unproven and now we see what he is; unorganized social media hound not ready for prime time. We need the grown ups back at the table. What do you bet Jen Beck is sweating now. HELP needed and a new chairman. This loss is a golden example why we need a real leader running the party.
The all female state delegation got a rude wake up call. Next target: Jennifer Beck!
Congradulations Chairmen Golden! YOu are the best thing to come along in while for the Dems! HUGE loss for our party. Two great candidates lost under your leadership. The writing is on the wall, we are doomed and the Dems will continue to gain control of our county.
Casagrande and Angelini spent the weekend on the ultra dumb bus ride orchestrated by Bramnick. Instead of posing for photo ops they should have been out knocking on doors.
“You get what you deserve”
with many county committee people who were starry- eyed about the”popular” sheriff, and, frankly, those local chairs who were basically “bribed” with smooth talk, and a check or two..yes, sad but true.. the entire party faithful need to really look closely and decide, as to whether it will really be an overall positive, to have the guy running for re- election as chair(/ “king,” ) and the Constitutional office of sheriff, in the same ( a rough Presidential) year! -Do we really need such a likely self- inflicted wound, rife with opportunities for the Dems to fully exploit??-they have shown much outside money can and will be found and spent to take Monmouth: this year, 11 was their ( sadly successful) practice run..maybe he needs to examine whether if,in fact, he is/ will be, part of another, worse problem, next year..( if he can)..
This is the man that took Bennett’s legs off to be chairman. You think this would have happened under Bennett’s watch??
You reap what you sow. Perhaps he should have just remained sheriff where he can continue to keep quiet about the Guadagno Pension fraud.
Casagrande was a poor Assemblywoman who did not author a single meaningful bill that effects out pocketbooks. Maybe her people in Spring Lake can afford everything but the rest of us can’t. Not saying that the new people will do anything to help us but it should be a message to the entire republican rusty machine that they better come up with something new. The same old clubhouse good ol boys running things will loose every time.
you fail to give her credit for the great outreach to young people and voting down Dem tax increases- NJ has enough bad laws just because some people want their name on something: we need less laws here, not more!..and, look at Spring Lake: it’s Dem, for God’s sake.. Stop the stereotyping, especially when it’s not true- plenty of the “rich” you abhor, are Dems!
The shame is that the chairmen has done nothing to bring new talent and members into the party. It’s the same people time after time volunteering and helping out, no one new. The showing for the last several fundraisers have been pitiful. Now the chairmen has to pay people to man phone banks! It’s a pitiful disgrace! Losing the assembly seats we have held for so long should be a wake up call to all committee members and all of us.
Enough with the blame Shaun nonsense already. This is the result of a well-timed, well-financed initiative orchestrated by the public sector unions. The NJEA dumped $750,000 into Monmouth County four days before the race. The NJEA, PBA and CWA sent letters out to their entire membership with the names of the District 11 Democrats and a plea to vote for them. in a low turnout year, it’s the union drones who come out to vote and they were the difference. Shaun, in fact, is doing an admirable job of bringing the party back to solvency after the last chairman left the till empty.
The comments on this article seem to indicate that (some of) John Bennet’s supporters take joy in the fact that we just lost two seats to an orchestrated, well-funded Democrat campaign during a time the Shaun Golden is chair. Everyone with eyes and ears knowns that Shaun Golden and his party officers run relentless campaigns based upon the core fundamentals of political campaigning. The same “Republicans” who criticized Golden on this page are the same hacks who would rather see one of their Democrat pals from the Old Guard take office in hopes of receiving personal gain (a job, contracts, etc) than see their own Republican party flourish under Golden’s leadership.I’d bet a nickel that not one of these detractors volunteered to help Angelini or Casagrande. This is sad, but nothing new. Don’t be fooled, LD11 Democrats had seven times more money in the coffers than Angelini/Casagrande and had all the special interest support you can think of. While much can be learned from these losses, they certainly can’t be pinned solely on Golden or present MCRO leadership.
that some of the chair’s apostles/apologists are pretty thin- skinned: all chairs have to take the credit for the wins and the criticisms for the losses! – it’s part of the gig..and, any real Republican is very upset and sad that the two good ladies lost!..also, anybody who knows this state dynamic,knows full well that the Democrat power brokers will never stop sinking dollars into this county, til it is finally “blue:” it worked in Bergen, and they are moving down the whole state…all some folks are warning is, that the current leadership needs to continually re- assess and re-evaluate how to keep us GOP, going forward: that is what they signed up for, not just THEIR offices, and slots, and power, and advancements..
I couldn’t be happier. Paybacks are a B.
Jennifer your next. When you put in a bill to ban motocross applications in NJ. I didn’t forget that. I was one of the applicants for the Jersey Shore Motocross. A small business application that cost us $360,000 to get denied after 5 years. Mini Bikes for kids . Keeping kids off streets. And the three of you started a ridiculous bill and went against us. Well ladies we have 18,500 followers and because of what you did to us we made sure that the riders in your district knew you were running and we let them know to go out and vote . And they did . At least 300 that we know of . I am sure many more. You never looked at the facts of the application and testimony . A motocross park behind a recycling center . For kids.
You could of landed a jet at that location and wouldn’t hear a bike.
It was all about votes from Tinton Falls and they ended up not supporting you.
Goodbye
LD 11 has always been a weakness for Republicans. Cassandre defeated Mike Panter, who in turn had defeated O’Sanlon by less than 10 votes. Lets not forget that Lavender Farmer from the MoCo Democrat machine Ellen Kartcher who preceded John Bennett. Kartcher was defeated by Jen Beck. In these last 10 years the Dems have had their Senator and Assemblyman in LD11 and they did it again, surprise, ,surprise. LD11 has deep pockets of Dems in Asbury, Neptune, Long Branch, Freehold Borough and the recent redistricting only made it easier for the MoCo Dem machine. Golden didn’t do the redistricting now did he? Golden didn’t stack the deck with towns that have such high concentrations of Dems now did he. No other chairman had to deal with such an imbalance as we have today in LD11. Repubs came out on the bottom of very tight race. I’d like to see the vote by mail stats. Dollars to donuts that was the Dems secret sauce, and Repubs had better learn how the Vote By Mail game is played!
the county GOP did just that: several chairs made sure there was an aggressive promotion of absentees( now VBM,) starting at the county fair and in the summer, when kids went back to college and people knew they’d be away in Nov., etc.. There was more responsibility put on the municipal chairs,to get and turn in as many as possible, so, there was always a few extra in the bank, and a few times, our absentees saved some people..while the instant emailing and social media must be used today, there is a tendency to put planning and harder, tedious grunt work off, and to rely on last- minute electronics- there must be a combination, there is still no substitute for direct person-to- person contact, while running a campaign,and getting people to come out and vote your way. The Dems just learned our secret, and, as they do, often go overboard, turning in apps from people without their knowing it, people who should not be voting- moved, don’t live there, didn’t really fill out their own form, etc- hence, money’s been spent in court,to defend against voter fraud.. Again, re- assessment and more personal contacts and outreach appear to be needed now- given the influx of more and more Dems to this county- we also used to welcome new people to the towns, and the c.c. job was to go and get them registered before the other side did- I don’t think that is done any more, either. The bottom line is, you can’t just rely on the new techniques, some of the old ones that were proven to have worked, need to be re- visited, and soon..
Andy, I agree! Payback will be a bitch for Jennifer Beck. It is time to complete the sweep of the all female delegation from LD 11.
She should just resign PERIOD! How can this woman look herself in the mirror after she sponsored Kyleigh’s Law that mandated a red sticker on the license plate of under 21 year olds? This sticker was not only placed on the license plate, it also placed a bulls eye on the backs of our youth. This requirement is not even enforced by the police because they too have children.
Secondly, after the ugly revelations of Bridgegate, Beck did in fact do the right thing by voting for the Port Authority to be transparent and accountable to the public. However, when Christie vetoed the bill, she went against her own better judgment to side with the unethical pig Christie. Why? Is she afraid of him? Or is it because she got her ex-husband and office assistant dumped there along with approximately a hundred other unqualified Christie cronies?
What about the background check of people who apply for gun permits after getting their mental records expunged??? Wouldn’t Beck want law enforcement giving these people a little more scrutiny than the average gun application?? Helllooo Jennifer, where have you been? Have you been reading about all these loonies with guns killing people???
Your record on protecting taxpayers and people in general quite frankly SUCKS!!!
Please resign and enjoy a vacation with Caroline and MaryPat.
So funny reading these excuses for Golden losing these seats. They were smarter then us, they spent more money than us, they tricked us, they out smarted us by being unfair, lol!
But when Golden uses the same tactics on his oppenants its ok, and he has no problem celebrating the win. I wonder how much money he kept in reserve for his own campaign? I bet when he is challenged next time he will empty the account to secure his win.
a true leader WINS! Thats what they are there for ,they are in control, know whats going on and develops winning tactics and strageties to overcome whatever the opponent does.
Overspent? why didnt he raise more money?
Why didnt he go to super pacs for funding?
Humm? Who was running the Sheriffs department during all his strategizing? campaigning? running the party? Hes a part time Sheriff and a full time Party chairmen.
he failed at his full time job and his part time job too. The problem is his full time job failure effects just the party, his part time failure effects everyone in the county.
Thats why our party is going down the toilet.
Great stuff here. Pissing and moaning, gloom and doom looking forward.
First, congratulations to Chrsitine Hanlon and John Curley, according to some people here, your victories represent a miracle or mathematical aberration.
I think we lost because our County Chairman put his faith in his Municipal Chairs and they came up short. I know I did. Whenever I needed walk lists,phone lists or lit from headquarters, I got it. I’m not blaming Shaun. My town came up very short in what we were expecting to turn out. Less than 20% and we had two of our own on the ballot! If I had gotten another 3.5% in turnout in my town, Mary Pay Angelini would have won.
I will look at what happened on Tuesday, take the lesson I need to learn and then move forward. There is a new dynamic in my town and my county and I need to figure out how to do what I can to get the results we need.
One thing I won’t be doing is pointing fingers or heeding the advice of those who do.
Look in the Mirror Shaun! Your the problem. Your like Christie, you get a full time job as sheriff, and you treat it like a part time while receiving full pay.
Keep it up, you will be next!
http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf/2015/11/gops_11th_district_loss_was_backlash_of_christies.html#incart_river_home
People like Andy Rose make me laugh. He bases his precious vote for the legislature on an issue that 99.9% of the electorate couldn’t give a rat’s butt about and frankly, is about as important as naming a state bird or putting license plates on tricycles (two brilliant democrat initiatives, btw). So he chooses to waste his precious vote on members of a party whose obsession with raising taxes, creating unnecessary regulations, punishing business and growing government programs to unsustainable levels has pushed NJ to the brink of bankruptcy. Nice going genius
have tried to reasonably step out of emotion, personalities and agendas, and offer suggestions to the new guard,that worked before, and ideas to perhaps help a decaying situation,that needs constant attention, or our worst fears will be realized.. Shaun’s a good sheriff: he is up for re- election in 2016, a high- turnout, Presidential year, and needs to re- elect two freeholders, along with himself. In the meantime, he’s up for re- election as chair: this is crazy: how can we succeed, and fight the obvious attacks we will endure, because of these? -We are down in fundraising, it is hard now,with all the laws: the poor, unqualified Dem candidates they field, get nearly unlimited, union and out-of -county help- district 11 is only the beginning.. I respectfully suggest the chair find a capable person,who is unfettered by another public,important job, to put forward next year, to take the reins, and get us into a totally winning condition, with him as the top of the county ticket,next year.