Midterm elections 2018: Will Democratic 'blue wave' wash over New Jersey?

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Watch: Tom MacArthur explains House floor confrontation with Democratic leader Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-Toms River, describes the argument he had on the House floor on May 8, 2018, with Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley over the House chaplain. Herb Jackson/NorthJersey.com

It's become one of President Trump's frequent, hyperbolic Tweets lately, designed to pump up Republican Party morale on the eve of a potentially cataclysmic midterms.

"Great Republican election results last night." he wrote last Tuesday. "Red Wave!"

Not in New Jersey. Only a blue wave is forecast for here. The only question left now is its magnitude and whether Democrats can pull off an unthinkable clean sweep of the New Jersey congressional delegation. There are murmurs in the ranks that the current 7-5 Democratic Party advantage could extend to a lopsided 12-0 dominance.

David Wasserman, who handicaps congressional races for the Cook Political Report, an influential and nonpartisan newsletter based in Washington, D.C., is skeptical of a 12-0 rout.

But 11 to 1? That scenario is "much more plausible,'' Wasserman said.

Such an outcome would not only wash out the remnants of Jersey's purplish heritage, but become a crucial contribution in the national Democrats' bid to retake the House and become the long-sought check on Trump's hard-right agenda.

Flipping the House to Democratic control could have major consequences for immigration, health care, the environment and more parochial concerns like financing for the Hudson River rail tunnel or plans to open up the Eastern Seaboard to oil exploration.

And no one is more to blame for this forecast than Trump, who has executed an agenda that to many in New Jersey has the feel of a political vendetta, punishing the state for backing Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 16 points. Trump's tax overhaul, with its new cap on state and local tax deductions, will pinch the pocketbooks of homeowners who already pay the highest property taxes in the nation.

His administration has dragged its feet on the tunnel and other infrastructure vital to the Northeast, a stance that aligns him more closely with red-state Republicans in the South and Midwest who are antagonistic to the needs of the liberal Northeast.

Trump has administratively gutted the landmark health care law known as Obamacare, which provides coverage for 275,000 state residents.

Video: Poll and fund-raising paint gloomy picture for NJ GOP Record Washington correspondent Herb Jackson discusses what a new poll and fund-raising numbers say about New Jersey Republican chances in November.

And the litany of sexual harassment and assault accusations that shadowed Trump's rise to power have fueled more fury to women enlisted in the #MeToo movement. More than two-thirds of New Jersey voters viewed him unfavorably in a Quinnipiac University poll this spring.

Add to the forecast the fact that there are now 900,000 more registered Democratic voters than Republicans — a surge that began building 10 years ago — and you have the makings of wave of tsunami-like proportions.

"I don't think it is as much about registration as it is about Trump,'' Wasserman said.

Talk of a Democratic sweep accelerated last week after a Monmouth University Poll said the race in the 3rd Congressional District between incumbent Republican Tom MacArthur, a former insurance executive, and Democratic challenger Andy Kim was a statistical tie. The poll found MacArthur, who is running for a third term, with 41 percent to 40 percent for Kim, a Bordentown resident who served as a national security aide in President Obama's administration.

That result prompted Wasserman to change the rating on the race from "leans Republican" to "toss-up." It signaled that the Democratic discontent that threatens to swamp other once-reliable districts was now bubbling within the borders of one of the safest GOP redoubts, a district that stretches from the Philadelphia suburbs through the pine barrens of Ocean County. Trump carried that district by 6 points in 2016.

Rep. Leonard Lance on the challenges he faces in the midterm election A seat in NJ's 7th district is usually safe for Republicans but can be in jeopardy as the moderate congressman talks about the Trump effect.

Trump's popularity particularly in the the eastern sections in Ocean County emboldened MacArthur to latch his fortunes to Trump, helping broker an amendment that revived a GOP plan to replace and repeal the Affordable Care Act, a measure that passed the House but died in the Senate.

MacArthur was the only member of the state delegation to vote for Trump's tax overhaul, which is unpopular in New Jersey because it limits the amount of state and local tax deductions to $10,000. Trump rewarded him by holding a fundraiser at his Bedminster golf course.

But suddenly MacArthur is deemed vulnerable, joining Rep. Leonard Lance, R-Hunterdon, the once "safe" 7th District incumbent in Central Jersey who has been rated a toss-up and is in a fight for his political life.

And the fate of other Republican-held districts has also darkened the GOP outlook. Jeff Van Drew, a Democratic state senator from Cape May County, is the odds-on favorite to capture the 2nd Congressional District, held for nearly 24 years by Republican Frank LoBiondo, who is retiring. Van Drew's opponent, Seth Grossman, is an ardent Trumpian who attacked diversity as a "bunch of crap" and lamented that women have entered the workforce.

The once reliably staid Republican 11th Congressional District race, centered in Morris County, became a top Democratic Party target after veteran Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen announced that he would not seek reelection.

Democrats have rallied around Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor from Montclair. Sherrill had raised $2.9 million as of June 30, and her Republican challenger, state Assemblyman Jay Webber, had raised $172,000.

The only Republican district that is deemed secure at this point is the 4th, which stretches from the suburbs of Trenton to northern Monmouth and Ocean counties. It's been represented for nearly four decades by Republican Chris Smith, and Trump carried it by 15 points in 2016, his largest margin among congressional districts. Cook has rated that a "solidly Republican" district.

Not everyone in the Republican camp is scared off by the gloomy forecasts. Lance, for example, has proved to be a wily political survivor, protecting his right flank when threatened by the Tea Party in past re-election fights. He is facing Tom Malinowski, a former State Department official in the Obama administration who lives in Rocky Hill.

In the MacArthur-Kim contest, observers note that last week's snapshot of a poll doesn't reflect other variables in the race. For one thing, MacArthur's campaign has yet to define Kim through a heavy campaign bombardment. So far, the campaigns have reached a rough parity in fundraising .

Yet MacArthur is the 19th-richest member of Congress, according to an analysis by Roll Call. He put $5 million of his own money into the 2014 campaign, when he first won the seat, and could do so again. (The day after the Monmouth poll was released, a super PAC aligned with House Republican leaders began airing television ads attacking KIm as a Washington insider.)

A television ad financed by a PAC aligned with House Republican leaders

MacArthur's political consultant, Chris Russell, also disputed other aspects of the Monmouth poll, including its finding that MacArthur's support in Ocean County is at only 47 percent. He noted that both Trump in 2016 and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno in 2017 carried Ocean County by more than 60 percent of the vote. .

Russell also acknowledged that, while his allegiance to Trump might make him a more "polarizing" figure this year, he expects that MacArthur will be sustained by more independent voters "in the middle.''

"I think the people in the middle look at candidates and campaigns a little differently than a partisan person, and I do believe those people will reward him,'' Russell said.

But Patrick Murray, the Monmouth pollster, views the poll more as an omen than a snapshot. He said the findings follow the same pattern of other highly contested special elections this year, in which Democrats outperformed expectations in two staunch Republican districts that Trump carried in large numbers.

Voter interest was low in those races in the early going, but when voters became more engaged as the election date neared, it was the anti-Trump Democratic candidate who surged.

Murray has seen the pattern emerge in 11 polls he has taken of congressional races across the country so far. "The movement is there for the Democrats more than the Republicans,'' he said.

In other words, that's evidence of a looming blue wave, not a red one.

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