Gina Genovese

New Jersey's fifteen Electors will meet in Trenton on December 15 to formally cast their ballots in the 2008 presidential election.  The projected winners, pledged to Democrat Barack Obama, are: Carmen Brown, Elizabeth Duthie, William Fontanez, Gina Genovese, Kevin Halpern, Victor Herlinsky, Kelly Stewart Maer, Margaret Martin-Brown, Michael Muller, Salaheddin Mustafa, Peter Nichols, William Northgrave, Ginger Gold Schnitzer, Carl Styles and Stephen Weinstein.

Robin Dutta, who is working on Gina Genovese’s campaign to unseat State Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. in District 21, is a “Kean Scholar” at Drew University. Dutta’s scholarship was endowed in honor of Kean’s father, former Governor Thomas Kean, who spent fourteen years as President of Drew University.

Tom Kean, Jr., who lost a U.S. Senate bid in 2006, is up for re-election to his State Senate seat next month.: Getty Images Photo
The battle with Bob Menendez may have ended in a loss for District 21 State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr., but, "I never left the ring," he says as he faces the immediate challenge of Gina Genovese, a former Long Hill Township mayor.

Fight metaphors aside, insiders in both parties say they anticipate Kean winning comfortably in this Republican district. The strategy for Democrats is to keep him occupied here on his home turf, tied up and busy for the next month - and maybe leave him bruised and with sore hands as he heads back to Trenton.

That’s Genovese’s job.

State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr., today said he would not return $10,000 he received from the political action committee of Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, while his District 21 opponent said he should have already given back the money.

"The money that I raised, I expended over the course of the campaign," the Republican said of his failed 2004 bid against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean in Kenilworth this morning

When Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean starts listing the names of American cities in rapid succession, it’s difficult for the observer not to brace for what surely will be a war whoop exclamation point.

An old joke for Dean, but inevitable in packed houses where he faces core supporters. And while the former pump-up-the-volume anti-war Presidential candidate did rattle off locales where he believes Democrats can compete with the implementation of his 50-state strategy, there was no jump off the oratorical high dive as he addressed Union County Democrats this morning at the Kenilworth Inn.

Who wins the award for the most inane attack of the week? It's a close contest between Dana Wefer and Gina Genovese.

With about five weeks to go before the general election, it’s risky to write off any political campaign as a lost cause. But several underdog candidates who once seemed to have a slight chance at running competitive races do not seem to have picked up steam or support from their parties.

State Senate candidates Robert Colletti, Richard Dennison, Gina Genovese and John Villapiano have all run spirited campaigns. And while none has a good shot at winning on November 6th, all four insist that their campaigns are very much alive.

Meanwhile, Seema Singh’s State Senate campaign isn’t necessarily dead, though it is on life support.

Several months ago, there were suggestions that Genovese might get support -- mostly financial -- from a group of key Democratic insiders who wanted to use the 21st district State Senate campaign as a form of retaliation for Kean's U.S. Senate race against Robert Menendez last year. But Democrats now concede that Genovese has turned out to be a weak and largely unfocused candidate with little chance to score an upset in a legislative district where Menendez won 46% one year ago. Genovese's failure to mount an effective campaign has allowed Kean to spend money in other districts. Kean will likely be re-elected, probably by his usual margins, and seems well positioned to become the next Senate Minority Leader.

Is Shirley Turner really in trouble, or did someone just spin Joe Donohue? In a review of competitive State Senate races for the upcoming mid-term elections, The Star-Ledger listed the 15th district as one of the in-play seats that the GOP needs to win to take control of the Senate.

Republican newcomer Robert Martin is self-financing his race against Turner, and Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance has become infatuated with his candidacy. Martin has done some early mail and cable TV ads, and GOP insiders say he plans to spend a few hundred thousand dollars.