TRENTON -- Having lost the governorship, seats in both the state Senate and Assembly and numerous freeholder boards, New Jersey's Republican Party has picked a new chairman to lead it out of the wilderness.

Their choice was Doug Steinhardt, a name partner in former Gov. Jim Florio's law firm, Florio Perrucci Steinhardt & Fader. He was elected unanimously as the GOP's state chairman on Tuesday night, a source who asked to remain anonymous told NJ Advance Media.

Steinhardt was not immediately available for comment Wednesday morning, but a another person who attended the meeting said that it was aimed at "removing all the Christie baggage," and taking the party "back to its people."

The term-limited Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, leaves office Jan. 16.

Steinhardt was set to be named chairman over the summer, but withdrew his name from consideration after news broke that Christie appointed his wife to the state parole board.

The GOP's de-facto head at the time, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the Republican nominee for governor, had asked Steinhardt to step aside because she didn't like the "optics" of appointing someone to lead the party whose wife had just been given a $116,000 state job.

Instead, Guadagno installed Hackettstown mayor Michael Lavery, who is the nephew of one of her closest allies, Ocean County GOP chairman George Gilmore.

With Guadagno leaving the scene in January, Lavery is stepping aside.

Guadagno did not respond to request for comment.

Republicans are now facing sobering post-election realities in New Jersey. The divisive policies and often rancorous style of President Donald Trump has energized Democratic resistance: More than 365,000 new Democrats registered since 2009, according to state Division of Elections data.

By comparison, the state GOP added half that amount to its rolls.

Likewise, Republican candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, suffered mightily in fundraising. She failed to qualify for complete matching funds provided by the state's public matching funds program. Gubernatorial candidates who raise $430,000 receive two public dollars for every dollar they raise on their own.

Phil Murphy, her Democratic rival, out-raised Guadagno by a 3-to-1 margin.

On Tuesday, Christie said that the Republican Party's future lay in being an "opposition party."

"Everybody in my party who have at times complained about my leadership when I've been in, man, they're going to miss me soon," Christie told New Jersey 101.5-FM on Tuesday evening. "Because when you don't have the governorship anymore, very hard to get yourself paid attention to as a minority, opposition party."

In some respects, there is nowhere to go but up.

Republicans lost half a dozen Assembly races statewide, and also gave up a pair of state Senate seats.

Freeholder races yielded even uglier results. In the state's most populous county, there are no longer any GOP members on its board of chosen freeholders, and in Passaic County, the narrow 4-3 Democratic majority on its freeholder board is now 7-0, entirely Democratic.

But one bright spot for Republicans is that they won't have to deal with Christies's 14 percent approval rating come January.

Christie won the 19 towns where he was endorsed by Democratic mayors in 2013 by 9,645 votes (56.3%). This year, @KimGuadagnoNJ lost the same 19 towns by 28,020 (32.5%) -- a shift of 37,665. @GovChristie won 16 of the 19; Guadagno only 4. pic.twitter.com/yaortBqyWs — David Wildstein (@wildstein) November 13, 2017

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.