The Ocean County Republican Screening Committee voted to recommend Curtis Bashaw as their U.S. Senate candidate, the first step to obtaining the organization line in New Jersey’s top Republican county.
Ocean County Republican officials did not release vote tallies, but the New Jersey Globe has learned that Bashaw, a Cape May real estate developer and hotelier, won a 2-1 victory over Mendham Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner. They were the only two candidates who received votes in a large field of potential candidates seeking the seat currently held by indicted three-term incumbent Bob Menendez.
Bashaw and others will still need to compete at the county GOP convention next month.
In the 2020 GOP Senate primary, 13% of the total statewide votes came from Ocean.
The screening committee unanimously endorsed Manchester Mayor Rob Arace and Berkeley Township GOP Municipal Chair Jennifer Bacchione for county commissioner against incumbents Gary Quinn and Bobbi Jo Crea.
Bashaw is the favorite to become the regional choice in South Jersey, with Atlantic, Camden Cape May, Cumberland, Salem, and Burlington likely to support him. Serrano Glassner has won GOP conventions in Hunterdon and Union counties and will likely secure the line in her home county, Morris.
Former News 12 New Jersey reporter Alex Zdan, who entered the race recently, is also seeking organization lines.
The convention has rejected the screening committee choice in the past, albeit infrequently. Four years ago, they picked a different congressional candidate to run against Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) in New Jersey’s third district.
The results of the Ocean County Republican screening committee and convention during the first 23 years that George Gilmore served as county chairman were rejected only once.
During the 2005 Republican gubernatorial primary, Ocean County was uncharacteristically full of drama. Seven candidates competed for the nomination to run against U.S. Senator Jon Corzine.
The leading candidates were former West Windsor mayor Doug Forrester, who got screwed out of a U.S. Senate seat in 2002, and former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, who won 42% against McGreevey in 2001.
The shocker came in March when Morris County freeholder John Murphy won the screening committee’s recommendation. The victory briefly propelled Murphy’s candidacy.
Because nothing ever happened in Ocean without Gilmore’s consent, the Murphy win was viewed as Gilmore sending a signal to Forrester, the establishment candidate, that he was taking Ocean County for granted.
He was a strange pick for Gilmore, who earlier that year tried to convince U.S. Attorney Chris Christie to run. Murphy had beaten Christie in the 1997 GOP freeholder primary. Christie sued Murphy, who settled the case for an undisclosed amount that remains sealed.
Bob Schroeder, a local officeholder in Bergen County, had been working Ocean County hard. He had a beach house in Lavallette and was actively courting party leaders. He even took Gilmore with him to the Super Bowl. Then-State Sen. Andrew Ciesla (R-Brick) was with Schroeder.
At the Ocean GOP convention the following week, Schroeder led the first ballot with 72 votes, followed by Murphy (45), Forrester (41), and Schundler (31). The other contenders — Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano (R-Nutley), former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan, and former Bergen County freeholder Todd Caliguire — received no votes.
Schundler asked his supporters to back Schroeder on the second ballot.
Forrester had lost the Bergen GOP convention a week earlier, and Schundler wanted to make the case that his main rival for the nomination was tanking.
Schroeder beat Murphy by a vote of 97 to 47, with Forrester finishing third with 44 votes.
Forrester wound up carrying Ocean County in the June GOP primary by a 37%-27% margin over Schundler. Schroeder, running on the organization line, finished third with 15% of the vote, and Murphy, who won the recommendation of the screening committee, came in fifth with a mere 6% of the vote — 762 votes behind Lonegan.