Whoever wins the Republican nomination for Senate next Tuesday has a herculean task ahead of them: defeating incumbent Senator Cory Booker and giving New Jersey Republicans a U.S. Senate victory for the first time since 1972.
Four Republicans have stepped up to the task, and in tonight’s New Jersey Globe / Rider University Senate debate moderated by New Jersey Globe reporter Zach Blackburn, they each laid out their case for why they’d be the best man for the job.
“I have actually tangled with Cory Booker before,” said Alex Zdan, a journalist-turned-conservative activist. “As a News 12 broadcaster and investigative journalist, I went toe-to-toe with Senator Booker and with Democrats like Phil Murphy during the Covid pandemic to protect your individual rights and freedom. I have held Democrats to task.”
“The Republican Party has not gone to the urban communities. That is the key to our victory,” said Richard Tabor, a state trooper from Elizabeth. “If you’re looking for that candidate, it’s me, because I’ve done the work, I’ve put my boots on the ground, and I have ensured that I’ve changed Democrats to Republicans so I can get the job done.”
“I am convinced, from my long time of being involved in New Jersey politics, that until we inspire people to vote for us, they will not,” said Justin Murphy, a former local elected official in the rural Burlington County town of Tabernacle. “The way we inspire voters is with a vision and a backbone to fight for that vision, no longer letting Democrats define us.”
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and when you have an entrenched Democratic system in the state, what happens is people vote not only with their feet – they vote with their U-Hauls,” said Robert Lebovics, a physician from Bergen County. “You have to tell people, look, you want to Make New Jersey Great Again? I want to make it affordable again. You have to change the culture, you have to message the normal people in the middle.”
Of the four candidates, only Murphy has held elected office before, and he did so more than two decades ago. Zdan and Murphy both ran for New Jersey’s other U.S. Senate seat in 2024; Zdan ended his campaign before the filing deadline, while Murphy fought it out through the primary and came in third place with 11% of the vote.
And with none of the four Republicans raising huge amounts of money, it’s likely that all of them remain mostly unknown to the statewide electorate, making for an unpredictable race. Compared to the expensive, no-holds-barred GOP gubernatorial primary of 2025, for example, this year’s Senate contest has remained a relatively under-the-radar affair.
But for voters looking to differentiate among the candidates, each of whom have pitched himself as a steadfast conservative, tonight’s debate provided some contrasts.
On the Trump administration’s plans to build a new immigrant detention facility in Roxbury over the objections of the town’s GOP mayor and council, the four candidates offered competing views over how much deference to give local officials.
“There are criminal illegal aliens in this nation in our midst, and they need to be caught, found out, and deported, and if it means establishing more detention facilities, we should absolutely do so,” Zdan said; he also chastised Roxbury’s GOP officials for giving Gov. Mikie Sherrill “political cover” by joining a lawsuit against the facility.
“When it comes to putting a detention center in that area, we have to make sure the people are willing to put that in that area,” Tabor countered. “We don’t want to just put something in that area that they don’t want, because at the end of the day, as a U.S. Senator, we work for the people.”
Aid for Ukraine, a sensitive issue that has produced splits within the GOP conference on Capitol Hill, also proved to be a point of division. Murphy and Tabor said that as long as Trump remains at the helm, they feel comfortable continuing to provide U.S. assistance to Ukraine, but Zdan and Lebovics said they’d rather see Europe take the lead.
“President Trump changed the game. It’s not like we’re just throwing piles of cash at Ukraine like the Biden administration did,” Murphy said. “The structure that Donald Trump has in place is one I think we can all support.”
“The Europeans do need to take charge here,” Lebovics said. “Europe has a history of these types of conflicts going back hundreds of years, and ultimately, when you think of an America First approach, what is the U.S. interest? How much of an ally is Ukraine? I think it is.”
And asked whether they would support congressional authorization for putting troops on the ground in Iran, Tabor, an Iraq War veteran, had the fewest reservations – “If the president decides that we have to go to war, we have to go,” he said – and Zdan had the most.
“The way to bring this war to an end is negotiations led by President Trump, and that’s exactly what President Trump is doing,” Zdan said. “But there should be no troops on the ground in the current situation in Iran. We do not need another forever war in the Middle East.”
Zdan also made some interesting news when he said that he’d consider trying to oust Senate Majority Leader John Thune: “John Thune is not serving the people well, and I think there should be a serious discussion about his replacement.” When asked later in the debate whether they agreed, Tabor said he’d similarly be interested in replacing Thune.
On other issues, though, the candidates differed little. All four expressed approval for the anti-weaponization fund that Trump has floated to provide restitution to victims of “lawfare”; during a later lightning round, all four said they’d support limiting mail-in voting but oppose impeaching judges who rule against Trump.
Perhaps most surprisingly, when asked whether they would pursue a national abortion ban in Congress, none of the four raised their hand, despite both Tabor and Murphy earning the support of New Jersey’s leading anti-abortion group. Murphy explained his stance by saying that while he’s “unapologetically pro-life,” he sees it as an issue that should not be up to the federal government.
“The Dobbs decision overruling Roe v. Wade returned the issue back to each state,” Murphy said. “That’s federalism, that’s the 10th Amendment, and that’s what conservatives have wanted since 1973.”
And, of course, Booker himself was the subject of plenty of scorn. The senator won by double digits in his two most recent re-election contests, but his liberal views and anti-Trump activism have made him a reviled figure for New Jersey Republicans, something that all of his foes hope to capitalize on.
“I’ve asked people this question up and down the state: were you better off 25 hours after Cory Booker started speaking during his marathon filibuster?” Zdan scoffed. “You weren’t. You will be better off when I am in the United States Senate.”
Throughout the hourlong debate, one thing that the candidates refrained from doing was attacking one another. Republicans will need to work quickly after the primary to put together their anti-Booker effort, and though voters may be divided among the four candidates on primary day, there’s a widespread desire to unite them in the days that follow.
“I think all of us will be better senators than Cory Booker,” Murphy said. “And I think voters will absolutely reward one of us and do something we haven’t done since ’72, and that’s win this seat.”
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