Prior to the primary elections in New Jersey earlier this month, the state was seen as one of the few in which the balance of power between Democrats and Republicans in its U.S. House delegation could shift. The delegation currently stands at 6-6, with 11 of the districts having remained in the hands of the current dominate party since the 1998 elections.
The one exception to this is the 3rd congressional district, which is widely seen as the most competitive district in New Jersey. It was held by the Republican Party from 1992 until 2008, when Democrat John Adler wrestled it away during a Democratic wave year. In the following cycle, a Republican wave year, Republican John Runyan won it back.
Initially, this race was rated as “a toss up” by Larry Sabato. This was largely due to the fact that neither Republican candidate was actually from the district. Going into the primary, the two candidates were former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan and former Randolph Mayor Tom MacArthur.
Many within the party feared that if Lonegan won the primary, then the Democratic candidate would be able to once again capture the seat. This fear, based in no small part of Lonegan’s past electoral history in his previous runs for higher office, was furthered by the revelation that a SuperPAC tied to Harry Reid, Patriot Majority, had been sending out mailers designed to push primary voters towards Lonegan.
Patriot Majority did this by designing a mailer that attacked both MacArthur and Lonegan, but attacking Lonegan in a manner that was meant to boost his conservative credentials, calling him “conservative” and “too extreme” while labeling MacArthur as “tax-raising” and “big spending”. Groups affiliated with the Democratic Party have been using tactics similar to this in a number of races in recent years in attempts to influence Republican primaries into producing weaker general election candidates.
But MacArthur won the primary 60%-40%. Almost immediately, Sabato and other ratings sites had changed their rating from “toss up” to “leans Republican”. If their predictions are accurate, this will keep the House Delegation at a 6-6 tie.
The result of the NJ-3 race has been mirrored in several other high profile races in recent weeks. Excluding Eric Cantor’s loss to Dave Brat in VA-7, the candidates favored by the establishment have been largely successful in marquee races since the start of June.
In Mississippi, long-time incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran eeked out a narrow win over conservative favorite State Sen. Chris McDaniel. Unlike New Jersey, where the primaries are completely closed to cross-party voting, Cochran’s win in Mississippi has been largely attributed to support from Democrats. Due to this irregularity, McDaniel has yet to concede the race. As it was with Steve Lonegan in New Jersey, many pundits had suggested that if the often-controversial McDaniel had won the primary, it could have opened up a pickup opportunity for the Democrats.
Rep. James Lankford also defeated the tea-party backed candidate T. W. Shannon, the former Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated early by ailing Sen. Tom Coburn. While the winner of this race was seen to be the favorite in the general election regardless of the outcome, Lankford managed to defeat Shannon by a margin of 57-34, with minor candidates splitting the remaining votes. The win was seen less as genuine favoritism towards the marginally more moderate positions of Congressman Lankford, but rather as a backlash against the millions of dollars worth of negative ads poured into the race by outside groups supporting Shannon, including the Senate Conservatives Fund and Oklahomans for a Conservative Future.
