One of the most exclusive clubs in New Jersey politics belongs to the group of eleven men who over the last 100 years came within 1,000 votes of winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives: John McCloskey, Edward O’Neill, Paul Moore, Joseph Marini, Norman Roth, Lindsay Rudd, Gene Boyle, Dick Zimmer, and a father and son duo, Harry and Charles Joelson.
Of the eleven, four of them wound up serving in Congress.
The closest House race in the last 100 years was in 1956, when Roth, a Jersey City Republican who worked as a lawyer for the city’s Board of Education, lost to three-term Democratic Congressman Alfred Sieminski (D-Jersey City) by a razor-thin 57 votes, a 44.97%-44.92% margin. Two years later, Sieminski lost the Democratic primary to Cornelius Gallagher (D-Bayonne).
Roth had challenged Sieminski in 1954 and won 37%, but Dwight Eisenhower had substantial coattails when he carried Hudson County with 62% of the vote against Adlai Stevenson; a Republican won the other Hudson-based House seat and the GOP swept three freeholder seats. Roth died in 1988 believing Hudson Democrats had stolen the race from him — he was ahead on election night – but accepted his loss in a 1967 State Senate race with dignity.
Harry Joelson, a Paterson municipal court judge, took on five-term Rep. George Segar (R-Paterson) in 1932 and came within 238 votes of winning (49.17%-48.94%); Franklin D. Roosevelt carried Passaic County by five percentage points against Herbert Hoover that year. Segar had beaten Joelson by nearly nine points in 1930; he tried to run against Segar for a third time in 1938, but he lost the Democratic primary, 55%-42%.
His son, Charles Joelson (D-Paterson), a 32-year-old lawyer and World War II veteran, ran in the same district in 1948 against Rep. Gordon Canfield (R-Paterson) and lost by 148 votes; 47.5%-47.4%. The two faced off again in 1954 and Canfield won by almost ten points. After Canfield retired in 1960, Joelson made it to Congress on his third try with an eight-point win, outperforming John F. Kennedy at the top of the ticket.
Canfield spent eighteen years as Segar’s executive secretary (now chief of staff), before succeeding his old boss in 1940.
Joelson resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives in 1969 after Gov. Richard Hughes nominated him to the New Jersey Superior Court, setting up a November special election to fill his seat.
Republicans nominated Boyle, a 48-year-old former Passaic Valley Sewerage commissioner who owned a popular restaurant in Clifton; he faced a strong Democratic candidate, Robert Roe, the state Commissioner of Conservation and Economic Development in Hughes’ cabinet who had served as a Passaic County freeholder and as mayor of Wayne.
Roe won by 960 votes, 49.2%-48.5%. Walter E. Johnson, a Republican opposed to the Vietnam War, ran as an independent; with 3,122 votes (2.3%), he was the apparent spoiler.
The Democrat had been the heavy favorite and Boyle’s near win was much a result of GOP gubernatorial candidate William Cahill’s coattails. Roe went on to serve 23 years in Congress without ever having another tough race and chaired the powerful House Transportation and Public Works Committee.
Boyle never ran for office again.
Boosted by Roosevelt, Edward A. Kenney (D-Cliffside Park) defeated 34-year-old Cliffside Park Mayor and World War I veteran Joseph Marini by 890 votes, 47.6%-46.8%, in 1932. Kenney had previously lost three races for mayor of Cliffside Park: as an independent in 1921, as a Republican in 1923, and as a Democrat in 1927.
In January 1938, Kenney was the keynote speaker at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce dinner at the Carlton Hotel in Washington.
After what may have been an enjoyable evening. and unable to travel back to his apartment, the chamber arranged for Kenney to get a hotel room. He woke up during the night; presumably disoriented and in search of the facilities, he mistook a French window that was eighteen inches from the floor for a door and fell six stories to his death.
Marini lost GOP House primaries in 1936 and 1938.
Roosevelt also nearly helped Democrat John J. McCloskey, an attorney from Orange and World War I veteran, take out freshman Rep. Peter Cavicchia (R-Newark) in 1932. In his only run for office, McCloskey came within 955 votes of winning, 49.8%- 48.8%.
Two years later, Cavicchia held his seat again by just 579 votes (50%-49%) against Edward O’Neill (D-Newark), also a World War I veteran. With FDR on top of the ticket in 1936, O’Neill beat Cavicchia by more than five points.
During his ten successful congressional runs, Republican Fred Hartley (R-Kearny) came within hundreds of votes of losing three times.
Hartley ousted Moore (D-Newark), a freshman congressman, in 1928 by 321 votes, 50.1%-49.9%. In a 1930 rematch, Hartley beat Moore by 843 votes, 50.4%-49.4%; he wound up being a one-term congressman.
In 1936, Hartley survived a challenge from Rudd by just 665 votes — 50.2%-49.6%. Hartley survived another close race in 1946 from a young Newark attorney and World War II veteran named Peter Rodino; he retired in 1948 and Rodino began a congressional career that lasted forty years. Roosevelt later named Rudd the postmaster in Bloomfield.
[In 1940, Belleville Mayor William H. Wiliams came within 96 votes of ousting Hartley in the Republican primary. Close primaries are not as rare: Millicent Fenwick (R-Bernardsville) won her first congressional primary in 1974 by 83 votes against Assembly Minority Leader (and future governor) Thomas Kean; and Jim Courter (R-Allamuchy) captured his first primary win by 134 votes against former State Sen. Bill Schluter (R-Pennington) in 1978.]
Zimmer (R-Delaware) served in the House for three terms before running for U.S. Senate in 1996; he sought a return to Congress four years later against freshman Rep. Rush Holt but fell 651 votes short, 48.7%-48.5%.