Before the days of super PACs and independent expenditures, candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives spent what they raised.
That mostly benefited incumbents, but there were exceptions. Sometimes challengers raised more, or at least remained competitive. During an era of vibrant local media that covered House races daily – and in the earliest days of cable television in New Jersey — money wasn’t everything. Coattails mattered in presidential elections; incumbents received lower percentages in mid-term elections when they were members of the president’s political party.
And there were exceptions: in 1980, 27-year-old Republican Christopher Smith won by sixteen percentage points while being outspent 2-1; the incumbent, 13-term Frank Thompson, Jr. (D-Trenton), was under indictment, accused of taking a bribe in the Abscam scandal.
That year, one incumbent tried something new.
Three-term Rep. Millicent Fenwick (R-Bernardsville) made an offer to her 25-year-old Democratic opponent, Kieran Pillion, Jr.: she agreed to match – but not exceed – his campaign budget. They agreed to cap general election spending at $22,500.
“Let’s be small and prudent,” Fenwick said in a letter to Pillion.
(Adjusted to inflation, the $22,500 cap would be roughly $85,617.)
In the June primary, conservative Larry Haverly spent about $30,000 against Fenwick. Despite being outspent by a roughly 4-1 margin, Fenwick won the GOP nomination with 70% of the vote. Pillion, who had just finished law school, spent under $5,000 in the Democratic primary; despite having most of the organization lines, he won the primary by 332 votes against another Democrat who spent less than $100. Fenwick had grown weary of the role money played in political campaigns; she had never taken PAC contributions.
Fenwick stuck to the deal, but Pillion did not: he was only able to raise about $7,200 for his uphill race in a congressional district that was eliminated in redistricting two years later. The old district went from Princeton to Livingston, including parts of Middlesex and Morris counties and all of Somerset.
In the general election, Fenwick defeated Pillion by 114,747 votes, a margin of 57 percentage points.
Pillion, now a resident of Island Heights, lost races for Ocean County Clerk in 2015 and Surrogate in 2018.
Fenwick’s 1980 campaign manager was 23-year-old Christopher “Kip” Bateman (R-Branchburg), the son of former Senate President and 1977 GOP gubernatorial candidate Raymond Bateman. Three years later, he won a seat on the Branchburg Township Committee and became mayor in 1986. Bateman was elected Somerset County freeholder in 1987, to the State Assembly in 1993, and the Senate in 2007; he served in the Senate until his retirement in 2021.
In 1982, Fenwick became a candidate for the U.S. Senate. The four-term incumbent, Democrat Harrison Williams, Jr., had been convicted in the Abscam scandal, and Republicans thought they could win a general election against Frank Lautenberg, who had won a nine-candidate Democratic primary with 26%. The GOP had won New Jersey in the 1980 presidential race and in the 1981 governor’s race.
Fenwick, the pipe-smoking four-term congresswoman who inspired a Doonesbury character, had an 18-point lead. She began the race with solid favorables; nearly twice as many New Jerseyans knew who Fenwick was. In early October, she had maintained her 18-point lead over Lautenberg, 50%-32%.
Fenwick refused to accept PAC money, and Lautenberg was dogged. He spent millions of his own money, tying Fenwick to a tough economy in President Ronald Reagan’s midterm election. By Halloween, Lautenberg had cut Fenwick’s lead among likely voters to five points, 45%-40%; by Election Day, Fenwick had a one-point lead.
Lautenberg defeated Fenwick by 69,923 votes, 51%-48%. He spent about $5 million of his own money.