The Watcher: GOP Sugar Daddy is on his way out

Jon Corzine spent over $130 million of his own money on his three statewide campaigns.  Bob Hugin spent $36 million and lost one.  And Phil Murphy – maybe the better businessman – spent less than $16.4 million to serve as governor for eight years.

The tenure of Bob Hugin as the Republican State Chairman will come to an end this summer.

First of all, it’s not clear that Hugin wants to keep the job, but even if he does, the New Jersey Globe has learned that regardless of the outcome of the GOP gubernatorial primary, he’s not under consideration for another term.

Since gubernatorial nominees traditionally get to pick their state chair, why is this news?  Hugin was Jack Ciattarelli’s choice after winning the 2021 primary; if Ciattarelli wins in June, he’d essentially be letting his own guy go – although it’s not quite that simple.  Bill Spadea has sharply criticized Hugin’s job performance, so there’s no way he’d keep him.

The perception in New Jersey was that the mega-millionaire pharmaceutical company CEO was a human cash register – someone who would fund Republicans the way Jon Corzine boosted the coffers of Democrats in the 2000s.   Hugin has been extraordinarily generous – no doubt about that – but he was no Corzine.  In a way, he firmly believed in the “teach a man to fish” proverb.  He didn’t mind helping but didn’t view his job as being everyone’s self-funder.  His problem was that county chairs wanted to be fed for a day, not taught how to fish.

“I’m not sure this job was ever a great fit for Bob. Jack picked him because he thought he could raise money,” a Republican county chairman said.  “Bob took the job because he thought his ideas and strategies could help us win.”

Beyond his standing as a donor, critics say Hugin didn’t bring much else to the table.  He never fully recovered from an ill-fated plan to cancel the 2024 Republican presidential primary and replace it with a state convention – a move that cost New Jersey 40 delegate seats at the convention.  Still, some believe this was more the fault of Republican National Committeeman Bill Palatucci.

The problem for Ciattarelli, if he is the nominee, is that Hugin isn’t entirely popular among county chairs who have largely supported his candidacy.

Hugin emerged on the political scene in 2018 when he challenged Bob Menendez for U.S. Senate.  Menendez had been indicted in 2015 on federal corruption charges – entirely different from the ones he was convicted of last year —   but after a months-long trial, a jury couldn’t reach a verdict.

Had Menendez been convicted, Gov. Chris Christie was prepared to appoint Hugin to the U.S. Senate so he could run for a full term as an incumbent.  (Noteworthy: an October 2017 Quinnipiac poll, conducted while Menendez was on trial, has the senator’s approvals at 31%-49%; at the same time, Christie was at 15%-80%.)

Against Menendez, Hugin spent over $36 million of his own money – about $39 million total – but in Donald Trump’s mid-term election, Menendez won by eleven percentage points.

People close to Hugin say he never really understood how he could lose to a man who was a crook.

MASS RETIREMENT: Westfield Mayor Shelley Brindle announced this week that she would not seek a third term.  That’s not a big surprise: the New Jersey Globe first reported five weeks ago that she had quietly begun telling Democratic leaders that she wasn’t running.  What was surprising is that all four Democratic incumbents on the Town Council are also stepping aside.  (The part the Globe got wrong was that Ward 1 Councilwoman Linda Hapgood might run for mayor.)  Brindle had a horrible mid-term election after Republicans won four of the eight town council seats in what was largely a referendum on the mayor’s redevelopment plans.  Make no mistake, a mass retirement like this is unusual. “None want to be held accountable for the overdevelopment and construction that heats up this year,” said Republican strategist Harrison Neely.

Democrats will follow their 2017 game plan when Brindle, a newcomer, ousted a Republican mayor with 61% of the vote, and run a fresh face with no record to attack.  Their pick appears to be Jeremy Berman, a finance guy who owns a virtual reality experience franchise.  Berman coached a championship sixth-grade traveling basketball team.

MACHINE POLITICIAN: Shelley Brindle’s move is not uncommon in politics: hold off announcing retirements until the last minute to prevent a potential candidate who is not the establishment choice from having time to mull a possible candidacy.

ENTERING THE FRAY: Last week, The Watcher wrote about the possibility of the Republican Governors Association possibly helping to influence the outcome of the Democratic gubernatorial primary in New Jersey.  This week, the Democratic Governors Association took a shot at GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli — at least they think they did – accusing him of supporting “Trump’s and Musk’s slash-all approach, even as it hurts kids and farmers.”  The Democrats slammed Ciattarelli for his “loyalty to Trump,” saying the Republican backs Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and to create a state version of DOGE in New Jersey.  A Ciattarelli supporter in an e-mail: “Please, DGA, keep those attacks coming so we can use them in ads.”

NOT A MATCH: Former State Sen. Edward Durr won’t come close to raising the $580,000 he needs to qualify for matching funds under New Jersey’s Gubernatorial Public Financing Program by Monday’s deadline.  That means he won’t reach the stage in the two Republican debates.  Durr’s friends say he believes that because he defeated Senate President Steve Sweeney in 2021 after spending practically no money of his own, he can do the same in the governor’s race.

JUST WRITE A BLANK CHECK AND HOME SHE’S IN A GOOD MOOD: A lawsuit filed by Montclair’s Nancy Erika Smith accuses Montclair State University of repeatedly and systemically failing to protect two female executives from a toxic, sexist, and retaliatory work environment.  The lawsuit identifies the university’s chief information officer, David Chun, as the harasser and alleges that the university president, Jonathan Koppell, was complicit in protecting Chun’s pattern of retaliation.  Smith’s message: “In the midst of the Trump and Musk attacks on women, it is particularly outrageous that a New Jersey institution has allowed this discrimination and harassment.”

ELECTRIC COMPANY: The Watcher sees both parties recognize rising electricity costs as an issue in the 2025 gubernatorial and legislative elections.  There are two things to keep an eye on: how candidates use the issue and whether the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is held accountable.

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