General elections in New Jersey have somewhat predictable results, with the occasional exception of an unforeseen surprise. While most of the civilized world pays some moderate attention to the general elections, real politicians watch the activity associated with the primary day.
Why do the insiders pay so close attention to the lesser-known primary election? It’s a sort of simple adaptation of the Willie Sutton Rule: That’s where all the action is.
Those of us who have weathered a primary can tell you that there is nothing more intense and personal than a good old-fashioned primary. The art of winning of primary is a little different than the strategy employed to win the general.
In the primary, you must be laser-focused on winning your base over, one vote at a time.
The focus in the primary is playing to the right or left of the political spectrum, and unless you have a multi-candidate field, the center is a difficult pathway to successfully navigate.
The question is why are primaries so bruising and so damaging? The simple answer is it goes to the adage that the ones closest to you always hurt you the most.
Sad, but absolutely true.
Let’s go the videotape.
I can vaguely recall most of my opponents in the general election from 1995 to 2013, but I can recall with exquisite detail each primary opponent and their running mates. I can recall their campaign slogans, campaign managers, their lawyers, top supporters, election filings, campaign expenditures, and the normal outrageous and incendiary mail that was sent out. Why? Because it was always so personal and from people who had supported me in the past.
Inside the political confessional, if a person is actually being truthful, they will tell you that the biggest grudge they harbor is against someone of the same party. If they had a running mate, statistically, that’s the person. As an Assemblyman, I was among the few who truly liked my running mate – but the Senator, not so much. In my two stints in the lower house – I witnessed district after district where two lawmakers of the same party despised each other; two running mates not on speaking terms was more common than not.
It’s one thing to emerge as the winner of an intra-party convention or primary in a safe general election district, but when a vicious primary leaves one person off the November ballot in a competitive race against the other party, the wounds hardly ever clear quickly enough to bring factions together.
In my defense, I’m from Essex County, where primary wars have been the norm for most of my life. And with my profound apologies to my friends from the East, Hudson County isn’t in Essex’s league when it comes to the politics of the shiv.
Essex is one of the most Democratic counties in the state, but between 1986 and 2002, Republicans occupied the county executive’s office for twelve of sixteen years. Why? Because a big group of Democrats who came up short in the primary preferred a Republican to their own nominee. Ask Cardell Cooper and Peter Shapiro (may he rest in peace).
And ask a former Republican Governor how he carried all 22 towns in Essex against the sitting Essex County Executive (may he rest in peace). When Newark, East Orange, Irvington, and Montclair vote red, you know there’s got to be a fair amount of atmospheric hate.
In the old days, when county lines were vibrant, it was common for legislators to lose their seats because their county chair picked the wrong horse in a gubernatorial primary. Healing the wounds of a primary sometimes extended to those who were the unintended casualties of someone else’s fight.
A few quick notes.
The average county committee person doesn’t want to be dragged into a primary fight unless they really dislike one of the candidates. County conventions are where you see the most betrayal. Contested county conventions can yield a surprise or two, and it usually signals the start of the last few brutal rounds in a primary.
The primary battle is never taken lightly because the universe is so small, and any mistake or misstep could cost you the election. As opposed to a general election with tens of thousands of voters, in a state legislative race, you are focused on a universe of less than 10,000.
Each vote is critical, and handling the sensitivities on hot-button issues of your core vote requires surgical skill to execute a winning message. It isn’t easy.
As an incumbent, you are ripe for an attack on any of the thousands of votes that you cast, and some can be distorted so badly that, if true, you wouldn’t vote for yourself after seeing the distortion.
The drawbacks of incumbency are few, and a horrible vote or position can be exaggerated, exploited, and maximum damage done with the right social media or significant money to power that negative message. An incumbent can be blamed for anything that is bad at that moment, including the economy, education results, a pandemic, or things on a national level.
The challenger has their own problems. The ability to raise money is hard, as you need to improve upon non-existent name identification, and the ability to attract blocks of special interest money or manpower is difficult.
Meantime, the incumbent can take credit for the recent infrastructure project, park land improvement, or the sun coming up. Incumbents attract more attention and have a built-in mechanism to politic 24/7, all under the guise of being a dutiful legislator and bringing home the district bacon.
The point of this column is to outline the obvious problems created by these internal party fights and the aftermath, which brings me to the last point. Primaries are vicious and have long-lasting effects. The reverberations of some primaries are felt years later.
It’s not just the candidate who shoulders responsibility for how a primary campaign is conducted. Sometimes, staff, consultants, and people who stood on the wrong side of history are held accountable. Don’t pretend that doesn’t happen; it does.
Remember, elections are about winning. Victors only have to be good sports if they need you for their next election. Losers must only be gracious if they want to have a second act.
The one thing you can count on after a particularly harsh primary is the party chair will call for a unity breakfast that usually involves horrible coffee and forgettable pancakes.
My advice – save yourself the agony of a feigned unity breakfast the day after a hotly contested primary. Let some time dissipate and eventually, the person who earned fewer votes (loser) will come around, especially if the general election is projected to be close.
Simply because both sides will have something to gain.