Edward Durr took to Twitter to curse out Democrats like New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and President Joe Biden. He claimed immigrants bring disease into the country and compared COVID-19 mandates to the Nazi extermination of Jews. And he ranted about Muslims, calling them fools, saying Islam is a false religion while the prophet Mohammed was a pedophile.
Now, Durr is going to Trenton, after defeating State Senate President Steve Sweeney, one of the most powerful New Jersey legislators in recent memory. The shocking upset victory means the senate presidency -- which Sweeney held since 2010, longer than anyone in state history -- is up for grabs.
It also means Sweeney’s political patron, South Jersey political boss George Norcross, loses his main man in the Statehouse.
And it means Larry Wallace, a former Republican county official in Sweeney’s home base of Gloucester County, has a huge smile on his face. “I could not be happier,” he said on Friday. “Literally the head of the snake of the Democratic power brokers was cut off on Tuesday night.”
Wallace had long clashed with Sweeney. “Taking Sweeney out was definitely a seismic shift in local and state politics,” Wallace said. “It’s the biggest thing that has ever happened in Jersey, and will ever happen in Jersey politically.”
Sweeney easily survived well-funded challenges to his senate seat in the past. So how did he lose to a virtually unknown political neophyte who spent about $2,000 on his campaign and didn’t receive mainstream media coverage nor much support from the Republican party?
“It was a perfect storm,” Wallace said. Wallace owns a restaurant in Gloucester County, where he had many conversations with patrons about their political gripes: The governor’s COVID mandates that Sweeney and Democratic legislators went along with; persistently high property taxes; and anger over the perception of corruption within the seemingly omnipotent South Jersey Democratic machine.
Wallace also said the GOP gubernatorial nominee, Jack Ciattarelli, ran a solid campaign and had coattails (Ciattarelli came close to defeating Murphy, and has not yet conceded the race). And Wallace said Democratic South Jersey operatives appeared to run the same sort of get-out-the-vote operation as in years past, in which union members blanket the region to hand out fliers and get people to the polls. Getting the Democratic vote has long been the beating heart of the machine’s potency.
Mike DuHaime, a GOP operative in the state and close watcher of New Jersey politics, said the Democratic party certainly spent money on the race. But there are questions about how it used those funds -- its respected opposition research operation, for example, failed to find and publicize Durr’s bigoted tweets and Facebook posts. That evidence, DuHaime said, could have been blasted out in mailers to independent voters, which may have made a difference in a tight race.
“Ultimately [South Jersey Democrats] will be fine -- there will be another [senate] election in a couple of years, they still have a powerful electoral block,” DuHaime said. “But there’s no way for the Democrats to maintain the [senate] majority if the Democratic machine in South Jersey takes any step back. Democrats statewide need Norcross and his team to be strong.”
But in a twist, those cheering loudest over Sweeney’s toppling weren’t necessarily Republicans, but Democratic progressives who saw Sweeney as an obstructionist against their policy priorities.
“The Democratic majority never helped us with gay marriage,” said Jay Lassiter, an activist and writer for Insider NJ. “The Democratic majority never helped us legalize weed. The Democratic majority can’t even pass something like the Reproductive Freedom Act [codifying abortion rights] because they were too skittish and wanted to protect their vulnerable candidates who ended up losing anyway.”
Whether Murphy and legislative Democrats move further left after licking their Election Day wounds is doubtful, however. Democratic political operatives said they are advising officials to actually move to the center -- and that puts pressure on Murphy, an emerging darling of the left.
From where DuHaime sits, Sweeney would have won if the party hadn’t already moved too far leftward. He said discussions on spending in Trenton and Washington, D.C. -- “trillions this and trillions that” -- scares off middle-of-the-road voters. The election, then, “was a check on that kind of movement to the left on economic issues,” he said.
Sweeney has not conceded the race, and cast doubt on the Associated Press’s call that he lost. He said in a statement: “The results from Tuesday’s election continue to come in. For instance, there were 12,000 ballots recently found in one county. While I am currently trailing in the race, we want to make sure every vote is counted. Our voters deserve that, and we will wait for the final results.”
As for Durr, he has declared victory and in a statement apologized for his social media history: “I’m a passionate guy and I sometimes say things in the heat of the moment. If I said things in the past that hurt anybody’s feelings, I sincerely apologize. I support everybody’s right to worship in any manner they choose and to worship the God of their choice. I support all people and I support everybody’s rights. That’s what I am here to do, work for the people and support their rights.”
Meanwhile, Democrats are meeting behind closed doors to figure out who will replace Sweeney as senate president.
“I knew it would happen one day,” Wallace said, “and that day finally came.”
