Marge Roukema

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews' 201,163 votes in the 2004 general election is the most received by any House candidate in New Jersey history

Republican Christopher Smith received 198,446 votes in his bid for re-election to a fifteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. That was the most total votes received by any House candidate in the 2008 cycle, and the third highest total votes in state history. (Smith's 2004 votes also gives him the #6 slot.)

The record for the most all-time votes goes to Rob Andrews in 2004.

Democrat Rush Holt, who won 181,189 votes, makes the list of the Top Ten All-Time Votegetters in New Jersey Congressional races; Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen, whose 2004 totals put him second on the all-time list, is also ranked #10, thanks to the 177,039 votes he received last week.

The Top Ten All-Time Votegetters in New Jersey Congressional races:

John Adler won a seat in Congress eighteen years after his first House race.

Now it seems trendy to run for Congress, lose, then spend a lot of years in state government before finally making it to Washington.  In 2006, Albio Sires won an open House seat twenty years after his first attempt.  Sires had challenged U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini as a Republican in 1986; he later won local office in West New York, and after switching parties in 1999, he beat an incumbent Assemblyman in the Democratic primary.  He became Assembly Speaker after the 2001 election, and went to Congress after Bob Menendez joined the United States Senate.

Both of New Jersey's freshmen Congressman had previously lost House races.  John Adler ran against Jim Saxton in 1990 and lost 60%-40%.  A year later, despite one of the two biggest Republican landslides in state political history, he ousted four-term GOP State Sen. Lee Laskin.  Leonard Lance first ran for Congress in 1996, when Richard Zimmer gave up his seat to run for U.S. Senate; he finished third in the GOP primary, behind Michael Pappas and John Bennett. Lance moved from the Assembly to the Satate Senate in 2001, and became Minority Leader in 2004.

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:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has added New Jersey's fifth district to their "Red to Blue" fundaising program "once thought to be out of reach."  The Republican incumbent, Scott Garrett, faces Dennis Shulman, a blind Rabbi who has run an aggressive and surprisingly well-financed campaign in a district that hasn't elected a Democratic Congressman since 1978.  But the Red to Blue list is clearly not the DCCC's first-tier campaigns, and inclusion in the program doesn't assure any meaningful campaign dollars or substantial political support and includes over sixty House races nationally where Democrats aren't completely optimistic.  Josh Zeitz, who is challenging fifteen-term incumbent Christopher Smith in the fourth district, was added to the Red to Blue list in September.  Smith is still viewed as a safe bet for re-election.

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.

New Jersey Republicans have nine non-incumbent candidates for Congress in 2008, the most since 1976 when the state's House delegation had a 12-3 Democratic majority.  For the last decade, New Jersey Democrats have held a 7-6 majority in the House.

Here's a brief history of the party turnover of New Jersey House seats:

If New Jersey does not elect a Congresswoman in the 2008 election, it will be the longest period of an all-male delegation since women won the right to vote in 1920.

The first of just five women to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives was elected in 1924 -- four years after the ratification of the nineteenth amendment.  The first was Mary Norton, a political ally of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, who was also the first woman to serve on the Hudson County Board of Freeholders when she won in 1922. 

The pollster for the New Jersey Assembly Republicans is now in the middle of a major controversy in Michigan, where an incumbent Congressman has filed a complaint alleging that his challenger in the GOP primary has coordinated expenditures with the conservative Club for Growth by having Adam Geller poll for both the campaign and the 527 organization. Geller works for Tim Walberg, a conservative who is challenging freshman Joe Schwarz for the Republican nomination in the August 7 primary.

The Club for Growth typically backs conservative candidates against more moderate incumbents in Republican primaries. They backed Scott Garrett against Marge Roukema in 2000. Geller conducted the CFG poll in the Rhode Island Senate race, where incumbent Lincoln Chafee faces tough primary and general election battles.

At what point does nine-term Assemblyman David Russo view the Civil War among Bergen County Republicans as an opportunity? One influential Republican strategist opined that Russo should consider challenging two-term Congressman Scott Garrett in the Republican primary, suggesting that running on a line with County Executive candidate Kathleen Donovan and Freeholder Lisa Randall might be his best chance to secure the fifth district House seat that eluded him four years ago. Garrett has said he would run on the Bergen County Republican Organization line.

The Republican said that Russo's chances could increase if U.S. Senate candidate Thomas Kean decides to run on the Donovan/Randall line. Russo openly mulled a primary challenge two years ago, after losing to Garrett in 2002. Russo ran for the open seat when Marge Roukema retired in 2002 and won the Bergen GOP convention. But the primary vote in Bergen -- which accounts for more than half of the district -- was split between Russo and State Senator Gerald Cardinale. Garrett racked up big numbers in Sussex and Warren Counties and won the primary with 45 percent of the vote. Garrett has $291,000 in his warchest -- not a huge number for an incumbent.

Few Washington insiders believe New Jersey Congressman Christopher Smith has much of a chance to win the chairmanship of the House International Relations Committee if the GOP hold control of Congress in the 2006 election. Last year, the House Republican leadership deposed Smith as Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee for not being conservative enough for their needs. Smith faces three other House members in the contest to replace Henry Hyde as head of the powerful foreign relations panel.

Despite their seniority, New Jersey Republicans have had little success in securing positions of influence in the Congress. In addition to Smith, Marge Roukema was passed over for the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee in 2001, Jim Saxton lost a bid to head the House Natural Resources Committee in 2003, and Rodney Frelinghuysen lost his Appropriations Subcommittee Chairmanship in 2005. Still, New Jersey Republicans are split over the contest to succeed Tom DeLay as House Minority Leader. One Capitol Hill staffer suggested that New Jersey Republicans might be better off trading a united block of six votes in exchange for assurances that leadership won't pass over New Jerseyans in future battles for key committee chairmanships.