Florence Dwyer

U.S. Rep.-elect Leonard Lance will be tough to beat in 2010 after besting Democrat Linda Stender by nine percentage points

Democrats don't think it will be easy to  unseat soon-to-be freshman Leonard Lance from the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010.  Lance scored a 51%-42% victory over Linda Stender, who had been running for three years and had huge financial support from national Democrats.  The district has been Republican since Florence Dwyer ousted Harrison Williams in 1956. 

John Adler could be the first Democrat to capture a congressional seat (Jim Saxton's seat) in his district since Thomas Ferrell won in 1882, and Linda Stender, if she wins, she'll be the first Democrat to hold that seat (Mike Ferguson's seat) since Harrison Williams lost to Florence Dwyer in 1956.  New Jersey's House seats, with the last time the other party held them:

If Linda Stender wins her race against Leonard Lance, she would become just the sixth woman to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives since the ratification of the 19th Ammendment in 1920 -- and just the second to go without beating an incumbent.

Four of New Jersey's five Congresswomen went to Washington after defeating an incumbent: Mary Norton, a Hudson County Freeholder who went to Congress in 1924 when she defeated incumbent John Eagan in the Democratic primary with the backing of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague; Florence Dwyer, an Assemblywoman from Elizabeth, who ousted two-term Democrat Harrison Williams in 1956; Helen Meyner, the former First Lady of New Jersey, who beat freshman Republican Joseph Maraziti in 1974; and former Ridgewood Board of Education President Marge Roukema, who unsteated three-term Democrat Andrew Maguire in 1980.

The two New Jersey House seats most clearly in play next year are the two that have been held by the Republicans for the longest period of time: Democrats have not won the seat now held by Jim Saxton for 126 years, and Mike Ferguson’s district has not elected a Democrat since 1954.

The last time Leonard Lance ran for Congress was in 1996; he sought an open seat when Richard Zimmer ran for the United States Senate. In that GOP primary, Somerset County Freeholder Michael Pappas defeated Senate Majority Leader John Bennett by a 38%-34%, with Lance, then an Assemblyman, won 26%.

But Lance’s popularity among Republicans in Hunterdon County is undeniable, and Hunterdon is a key player in a seventh district Republican primary. And Union County, which has elected a Republican to Congress since Florence Dwyer ousted Harrison Williams in 1956, no longer dominates the district.

In 2006, 38% of Mike Ferguson’s primary votes came out of Hunterdon, while 29% came from Somerset, 27% from Union, and 6% from Middlesex.

Back in 1972, when legislators still drew congressional districts with the consent of the Governor -- and when the GOP controlled state government -- court mandated redistricting led to the creation of a new Republican district in northwestern New Jersey at the expense of a Democratic district in Hudson County. 

Michael Ferguson's House seat has been held by Republicans since 1956, when Assemblywoman Florence Dwyer unseated incumbent Harrison Williams. Williams won a 1953 special election after the five-term incumbent, Republican Clifford Case, resigned to become President of The Fund for the Republic. Dwyer spent sixteen years in Congress, retiring in 1972. She was replaced by Republican State Senator Matthew Rinaldo, who served until his retirement in 1992. Rinaldo's successor was Robert Franks, a State Assemblyman and Republican State Chairman, who served four terms before running for the United States Senate in 2000.

Case and Williams won open U.S. Senate seats after leaving Congress. Case won in 1954, narrowly defeating Democratic Congressman Charles Howell. Williams was elected in 1958, defeating GOP Congressman Robert Kean, the grandfather of U.S. Senate candidate Thomas Kean, Jr.

The first woman to run for Congress in New Jersey was Gertrude Reilly, a Socialist who won 4% of the vote in her 1914 challeneg to Democratic Congressman Joseph Eagan in a Hudson County district. Reilly ran against Eagan again in 1918 and won 9%. Dr. Jennie Sharp, a member of the Camden Board of Education, was the second won to run; she won 4% as the Progressive Party candidate in the first district.

Mary Theresa Norton, a Hudson County Freeholder, became the first New Jersey woman to serve in Congress. With the support of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, she defeated Republican Douglas Story with 62% of the vote in 1924. Norton remained in Congress for 26 years, becoming the first woman to chair a full House committee.

Susan McNair of Paterson became the second woman to win a major party nomination for Congress when she challenged two-term Republican George Segar in 1926. She won 27% of the vote. Besides Norton, Democrats and Republicans did not nominate a woman for Congress again until 1940, when Mary Duffy won 42% against a freshman Republican, Albert Vreeland, in an Essex County district.

Florence Dwyer, a Republican Assemblywoman from Elizabeth, became the first Republican woman to run for Congress -- and the first woman to unseat an incumbent -- when she ousted Democrat Harrison Williams with 51% of the vote in 1956. (Williams won a U.S. Senate seat two years later.) Dwyer's 1962 re-election campaign against Democrat Lillian Golf marked the first time two women faced off in the same House race; Golf won 40%.

Two other women ousted incumbents: Democrat Helen Stevenson Meyner, the wife of former Governor Robert Meyner, in 1974; and former Ridgewood Board of Education President Marge Roukema, a Republican, in 1980. Both had run once before without success -- Meyner won 43% against then-State Senator Joseph Maraziti in an open seat race in 1972, and Roukema won 47% in 1978 before defeating Democrat Andrew Maguire in 1980. Two Monmouth County women ran strong races against incumbent Congressmen: Democrat Katherine White, who won 47% of the vote against James Auchinclosss in 1960; and Marie Muhler, a GOP Assemblywoman, who won 49% against James Howard in 1980. No other women have won more than 45% against a sitting Congressman in New Jersey.

Norton was the only woman to be nominated for an open House seat until 1972, when Democrats ran Jerry English, a former interim State Senator (and future state Environmental Protection Commission), and Meyner. English lost to GOP State Senator Matthew Rinaldo, who won the seat Dwyer was vacating after sixteen years.

In all, New Jersey has sent five women to Congress: Norton, Dwyer, Meyner and Millicent Fenwick , who won an open seat in 1974, and Roukema in 1980. Since Roukema's retirement in 2002, New Jersey becomes the nation's most populous state without a women in its congressional delegation.