There are a lot of things one could say about Tuesday’s win by Linda Greenstein in the race to finish the final year of the 14th District state Senate seat, which had been held by Republicans for 19 years.
First, Greenstein had much better name recognition — she had been in the Assembly for about 10 years, while her opponent — Tom Goodwin — was a Hamilton councilman who lost an Assembly race for the same seat in 2007.
Second, we could make the argument made by Senate President Stephen Sweeney, who claims that the win is an indication that voters want the governor and Legislature to make nice (they might, but I’m not sure how the Greenstein win demonstrates this, given
Or, you could argue something I’ve been saying about Christie since he was sworn in: He may be governor, but he does not have a mandate. Remember, he won with less than 50 percent of the vote and had no coattails in 2009. And, while he may be popular in the polls, he had little impact on the races in New Jersey on Tuesday. In fact, the Greenstein win means a larger Democratic majority than Christie faced just a week ago — not exactly a glowing endorsement of his approach to fixing the state’s problems.
And the Democrats won all four special elections on the ballot Tuesday — two Assembly seats (5th and 31st) and two Senate seats (Greenstein and Donald Norcross in the 5th) — while the GOP captured county government in Bergen County and regained the third district Congressional seat won by Democrat Jon Adler two years.
If anything, New Jersey politics has grown even more muddled than before.
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