For as long as The Scrapbook can remember, we’ve watched impressive Republicans run for the Senate in New Jersey and flop. No Republican has won a Senate seat in the Garden State since Clifford Case was re-elected in 1972.
It took an exceptionally bad Democratic incumbent, but Sen. Bob Menendez might just make the dream come true. Menendez was indicted on corruption charges in 2015. The trial finally ended in a hung jury, but that is a very different thing from exoneration. The latest polls from New Jersey have Republican challenger Bob Hugin within the margin of error.
A report this month from the Star-Ledger has hopes even higher. The incumbent, it seems, may have taken the African-American vote for granted just a little too obviously.
“The Democrats have been taking the African-American vote for granted for too long,” he said in his office at Paradise Baptist Church in Newark. “It’s an insult. Some folks in the two-party system think this is like a political plantation: ‘You do what we say.’ We are long past that.”
The source of James’ ire was a call he received from T. Missy Balmir, a senior adviser for Menendez and veteran player in Democratic state politics. The call came after James hosted Hugin in his 400-member church a few weeks ago.
“They basically said, ‘Why did you invite him to your church? Why did you have a Republican in?’ ” James recalled.
Speaking only for ourselves, we’ve never been entirely comfortable with the practice of having political candidates speak (i.e., campaign) in churches. But Bishop James is absolutely right to suspect that New Jersey Democrats assume black voters will support them and that they need pay little attention to them. The trouble is Republicans—and not just in New Jersey—make the same assumption and don’t even try to win African-American support.
If Hugin changes that, count on it: He wins.
