Bob Menendez won’t be the only familiar name on the ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate from New Jersey this year.
Kenneth Kaplan, a 76-year-old Libertarian Party stalwart and former Livingston Lions Club president, is making his 12th bid for public office in a political career that began in 1975.
Kaplan’s first race was in 1975 when he challenged freshman Assemblyman Richard Codey in an Essex County legislative district that included East Orange, West Orange, and Orange. He finished fifth in a field of six candidates with 1,069 votes (1.7%), losing to Codey by 21,549 votes. (Codey served a total of 50 years in the legislature and is a former governor of New Jersey.)
In 1976, Kaplan sought an Orange city council seat in the North Ward in a race that featured future mayor and assemblyman Mims Hackett’s indictment on kidnapping and assault charges that were later dismissed. Hackett lost to Ernest Monfiletto, Jr. by 66 votes; Kaplan received 64 votes.
One year later, he ran for State Senate against Frank “Pat” Dodd, who had served for two years as Senate President. Kaplan received 250 votes – less than 1%. (The other Senate candidate, Nancy Jane Schron, holds a record that may never be broken: she is the last Republican to be elected to the East Orange City Council.)
In 1985, Kaplan made an independent bid for a council seat in Rockaway Township.
Libertarians nominated Kaplan as their candidate for governor in 1993 against incumbent Jim Florio and his Republican opponent, Christine Todd Whitman. Kaplan placed fourth in a field of fourteen candidates with 7,935 votes, about one-third of one percent. (Among the independents was former State Sen. Alene Ammond, one dubbed the “Terror of Trenton.”
He took on Alex DeCroce and Joseph Pennacchio as a candidate for a Parsippany-based State Assembly seat in 2005. He received 600 votes in his sixth-place finish, a little more than one-half of one percent.
Kaplan ran for the 26th district Assembly seat in 2007, this time against DeCroce and Jay Webber after Pennacchio moved up to the Senate. With 566 votes (0.7%), Kaplan finished seventh, 358 votes behind a Green Party candidate.
As a candidate for governor in 2009, Kaplan became the only person in New Jersey history to run in both races where an incumbent lost a general election. He received 4,830 votes – about two-tenths of one percent – in a third-place showing in a field of twelve candidates, including Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican Chris Christie.
In 2012, Kaplan challenged Menendez for the U.S. Senate and received the most votes of his career: 16,803, one-half of one percent. After spending $800, Kaplan finished third in a field of eleven candidates, 1,970,877 votes behind Menendez.
As a candidate for governor against Christie in 2013, Kaplan came in third out of eight contenders . He received 0.57% and 12,155 votes, but lost by 1,266,777.
His Senate run is his first campaign in eleven years.
Kaplan is a graduate of Brandeis University and New York University Law School, and worked on Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential campaign. He owns a real estate company in Parsippany.
In addition to Menendez and Kaplan, there are three other independent candidates: Christina Khalil of the Green Party, Joanne Kuniansky of the Socialist Workers Party, and Patricia Mooneyham, a Bridgeton resident running with the “Vote Better” slogan. They will face Democrat Andy Kim and Republican Curtis Bashaw.