Monmouth County Clerk Christine Hanlon is mulling a run for Republican State Chair to replace Glenn Paulsen, the New Jersey Globe has learned.
Paulsen announced last week that he would depart at the end of the year. Paulsen returned to party office in June – he had been the Burlington County GOP Chairman from 1990 to 2005 – as a favor to his friend, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli. He had no plans to stay as state chairman regardless of the outcome of last week’s election.
Hanlon was re-elected to a five-year term as county clerk in a landslide. A former prosecutor, she served as a commissioner of the Monmouth County Board of Elections and as a state committeewoman.
It’s not clear who else will seek the post; possible candidates include Hunterdon County Republican Chairman Gabe Plumer; Passaic County Republican Chairman Peter Murphy; Rosemary Becchi, who ran for Congress against now-Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill in 2020; Matt Gould, a lobbyist and former Senate staff who managed Jon Bramnick’s campaign for governor in 2025; and conservative podcaster Mike Crispi.
The job comes with some challenges: the state chair will need to become the primary flamethrower against Sherrill, and raise money as Republicans prepare for competitive congressional races and down-ballot ballot contests in 2026, and for State Senate and Assembly in 2027. Republicans are down to 23 seats in the lower house after losing eleven seats in 2023 and 2025.
Hanlon would become the first woman to hold the post since Virginia Littell from 1992 to 1995. Littell assumed the post after Bob Franks resigned to run for Congress, and held it until Assembly Speaker Chuck Haytaian took the job. Kathleen Donovan, then the Bergen County Clerk, was state chair from 1989 to 1990, when Franks ousted her.