After losing the battle over redistricting — something Christie tried and failed to influence — the fate of the Legislature was largely a foregone conclusion
Gov. Chris Christie is seen in this October file photo. A day after the state GOP failed to take control of the state Legislature, the governor heads to New Hampshire to campaign for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.TRENTON — For months, Gov. Chris Christie traveled around the country collecting political I.O.U’s for himself and millions of dollars for the state Republican Party.
He recorded campaign commercials for a few Republicans with a chance of edging their Democratic opponents. He held high-priced fundraisers for them, and in the final days of the campaign he made a handful of public appearances at diners and news conferences.
But it was hardly a full-court press, and the results were disappointing for Republicans. Christie, who followed the election returns at Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion in Princeton, did not visit any campaign headquarters.
And rather than consoling and recalibrating a defeated a state Republican Party, he planned to spend most of today in New Hampshire and Boston with supporters of Mitt Romney, whom he has endorsed for the Republican presidential nomination.
"Tomorrow he’s going up to help Mitt Romney," Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), the state Democratic chairman, said Tuesday night. "I hope he does for Mitt Romney in New Hampshire what he did for Republicans in New Jersey."
For months, the election in New Jersey held little allure for Christie. After losing the battle over redistricting — something he tried and failed to influence — the fate of the Legislature was largely a foregone conclusion.
As a result, he will spend the next two years the same way he spent the first two — with a Democrat-controlled Legislature.
"While the election wasn’t a referendum on the governor, the governor really did put a lot of effort into a few key campaigns," said Patrick Murray, the director of polling at Monmouth University. "And he came up with nothing."
That is not to say Christie was expecting a Republican takeover of either chamber, or even making significant gains. To the contrary, he and fellow Republicans tried to set the public’s expectations so low that a gain of one seat in the Senate or Assembly would be seen as a victory.
"He’s hedging his bets in a somewhat schizophrenic manner," Wisniewski said. "We’re going to make history but not that much history. We’re going to make a little history. It’s almost laughable."
Wisniewski circulated a memo to Democrats on Monday detailing how the governor’s coattails came up short.
Christie’s effort at electing Republicans to the Legislature in his first two years in office were the weakest since the 1930s, he said, bringing only one additional Republican with him in 2009; and in a special election in 2010, his party lost a Senate seat.
Republicans, for their part, cited different statistics, pointing out that only one governor in the last 48 years — Jim McGreevey, a Democrat – gained seats during a legislative election midway through a first term.
In the end, the futile Republican campaign could be traced to the failed redistricting process six months ago. Democrats prevailed by winning over the tiebreaker on the redistricting commission, Alan Rosenthal, who supported a map that ensured that Democrats would retain their majority.
Not that Christie didn’t try. He played an active role, going so far as showing up at a New Brunswick hotel where the commissioners were dug in during their final week of mapmaking.
Still, Tom Wilson, a lobbyist and former Republican state chairman, said off-year legislative elections turn on local issues, not the governor.
"It’s what they always are: A district-by-district battle fought over local issues," he said.