The 2009 New Jersey gubernatorial election took place on November 3, 2009. Incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine ran for a second term against Republican Chris Christie, independent Christopher Daggett, and nine others, in addition to several write-in candidates. Christie won the election, with about 48.5 percent of the vote, to 44.9 percent for Corzine and 5.8 percent for Daggett. He assumed office on January 19, 2010. This was the first election to fill the newly created office of lieutenant governor, with the candidates for governor choosing their running mates. Kim Guadagno, Christie's running mate, became New Jersey's first lieutenant governor.
Christie won the largest margin for a non-incumbent Republican since 1969. He was the first Republican to carry Middlesex and Gloucester counties in a gubernatorial election since 1985. The 2009 election was the only time since 1961 when Bergen County did not support the winner of the state's gubernatorial election. Chris Daggett's 5.8% of the vote was the best for a third party in a New Jersey gubernatorial election since 1913. This is the second (and most recent) time that a sitting governor of New Jersey lost a general election for the second term since 1993.
Democratic primary
Candidates
- Roger Bacon, businessman
- Carl Bergmanson, former mayor of Glen Ridge
- Jeff Boss, perennial candidate
- Jon Corzine, incumbent governor
Campaign
Although Corzine was unpopular among independents and Republicans, he polled much more highly among registered Democrats. His three opponents were former Glen Ridge mayor Carl Bergmanson, who ran on a platform of fiscal discipline, governmental reform, and removing the tolls on the Garden State Parkway, the New Jersey Turnpike and the Atlantic City Expressway; perennial candidate Jeff Boss; and businessman and former Congressional candidate Roger Bacon. A Quinnipiac poll conducted shortly before the primary and released on May 20, 2009, indicated that 65% of Democratic primary voters would vote for Corzine, with the other three candidates each receiving 4%–5%. Also, 62% of Democrats approved of him while 24% did not.
On the primary election night, when Corzine accepted his party's nomination, Vice President Joe Biden campaigned for him, saying that he and President Barack Obama would help him get re-elected. Biden also characterized Corzine as "America's governor."
Republican primary
Candidates
On ballot
- Chris Christie, former U.S. attorney and former Morris County freeholder
- Steve Lonegan, former mayor of Bogota
- Rick Merkt, state assemblyman from Mendham
Removed
- David Brown, businessman
- Christian Keller
Lonegan disputed the nominating petitions of Brown, Keller and Levine, and administrative judges ruled that their petitions fell below the threshold of 1,000 valid signatures. As such, their names were removed from the primary ballot.
Campaign
Most of the focus in the primary campaign was on the Republican contest between the front-runner, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who was heavily favored by the party establishment, and former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan. Both sides released numerous television and radio advertisements, as well as mailers to registered Republicans. Christie focused on his record of fighting corruption, while Lonegan emphasized his credentials as a lifelong conservative.
On April 1, Lonegan released the first attack ad of the 2009 campaign, and released another one on April 19. He accused Christie of ethically dubious awarding of no-bid monitor contracts during his tenure as U.S. attorney, described him as a moderate, and made other allegations. However, on April 24, Christie responded with a new 60 second radio ad noting that Lonegan has lost many elections in his career, including losing by a landslide to Steve Rothman for Congress in 1998 and finishing fourth (out of seven) in the Republican primary of the 2005 New Jersey Governor's race. He also claimed that Lonegan's "flat tax" plan, a crucial part of the candidate's platform which calls for applying the same income tax rate to everyone, "would raise taxes on almost 70 percent of New Jersey workers", and characterized Lonegan's previous attacks as "desperate."
Among those to endorse Christie in the primary were former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, businessman Steve Forbes, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. In addition, all county GOP organizations endorsed Christie, as did several New Jersey congressmen.
Joe the Plumber endorsed Lonegan and campaigned with him on May 5. On May 14, United States Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) sent out an email endorsing Lonegan and asking for donations to Lonegan's campaign. Economists Art Laffer and Peter Schiff also endorsed Lonegan, as did New Jersey General Assemblyman Michael J. Doherty.
Christie was declared the winner of the primary, defeating Lonegan by a margin of 55 to 42 percent. Lonegan immediately endorsed Christie, stating:
It's our job now, it's your job now to change our focus on taking this Republican Party in a new direction. We must have one common cause, one cause. We need to beat Jon Corzine.
Debates
Two state-sponsored televised debates were held before the primary. The first, on May 12, was broadcast on NJN, while the other, held on May 17, was broadcast on the New York television station WABC-TV. Both debates were between Christie and Lonegan. Because Merkt did not meet the fund-raising or spending thresholds set by the state, he was not allowed to participate.
However, all three candidates were featured in two additional radio-only privately sponsored debates shortly before the primary.
General election
Candidates
- Chris Christie, former United States Attorney and Morris County Freeholder (Republican)
- Running mate: Kim Guadagno, Monmouth County Sheriff
- Jon Corzine, incumbent governor and former United States Senator (Democratic)
- Running mate: Loretta Weinberg, state senator
- Jason Cullen, Riverdale Board of Health chairman (People Not Politics)
- Chris Daggett, former New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection and Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor Thomas Kean (Independent)
- Running mate: Frank J. Esposito, Kean University professor
- Kenneth Kaplan, real estate broker and perennial candidate (Libertarian)
- Joshua Leinsdorf, former Princeton School Board member (Fair Election Party)
- Running mate: Joanne Miller
- Alvin Lindsay Jr., (Lindsay for Governor)
- Running mate: Eugene Harley
- David R. Meiswinkle, attorney (Middle Class Empowerment)
- Running mate: Noelani Musicaro
- Greg Pason, writer and national secretary of the Socialist Party USA (Socialist)
- Running mate: Costantino Rozzo
- Kostas Petris, restaurateur (For The People)
- Running mate: August Petris
- Gary T. Steele, attorney (Leadership, Independence, Vision)
- Running mate: Nancy A. Pennella
- Gary Stein (different slogans in each county)
- Running mate: Cynthia Stein, the nominee's wife
Write-in candidates
- Carl Peter Klapper, populist poet and Johnsonville Press columnist
- Angela Lariscy, communist political organizer and perennial candidate (Socialist Workers)
- Eddie McOwskey, perennial candidate (Balance Ya Taxes)
- John Meehan, Bethlehem Township committeeman
- Uncle Floyd, comedian (Independent)
Campaign
Corzine kicked off his campaign in June criticizing his Republican opponents and tying them to former president George W. Bush. Corzine also released the first two television campaign ads, both were 30 second spots, released on January 5. One of the ads compared the two candidates' positions on social issues. The Republican Governors Association shot back, releasing two of its own television ads showing how Corzine had broken campaign promises on June 16.
Corzine was criticized by GOP leadership for granting contract concessions to state workers, by granting them an additional seven paid days off, after threats were made to protest the primary election night event where Vice President Biden was the keynote speaker. It is estimated that these concessions will cost the state $40 million.
The election became a three-way race on July 7, when independent candidate Christopher Daggett, a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency and Deputy Chief of Staff to former governor Thomas Kean, announced that he had raised enough money to qualify for public funds and to qualify for participation in the debates. Both Democratic and Republican leaders took Daggett's campaign seriously. Only a day before the election, the New Jersey Democratic State Committee admitted to funding political robocalls in Somerset County attacking Christie and urging a vote for Daggett. Party chairman Joe Cryan initially denied the charges until it was revealed that the disclaimer at the end of the call declared it was paid for by "Victory '09, a project of the NJDSC," the abbreviation referring to the state Democratic party. Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for the New Jersey Republican State Committee, attacked Cryan as an "outright liar," adding that "Corzine's party boss knows what we know: Jon Corzine's record is so dreadful that they feel they need to try to trick voters into a second term." Similarly, state senator Marcia Karrow, a Christie campaign coordinator in Hunterdon County, declared that Daggett voters "might as well pull the lever for Corzine."
On July 15, the New Jersey chapter of a liberal environmental group, the Sierra Club, released a report critical of the Corzine administration's environmental record, with New Jersey Executive Director Jeff Tittel stating that group believes "this will go down as the worst environmental administration in state history." The state organization formally endorsed Daggett on August 17, its first endorsement of an independent candidate.
Corzine was the target of a vigorous advertising campaign funded by the Christie campaign and the Republican Governors Association, attacking his record as governor, tying him to corrupt officials, and assailing him for failing to deliver on his campaign promises. The RGA set up a mock newspaper website, "The Corzine Times", collecting newspaper articles critical of Corzine.
One of Corzine's main lines of attack involved Christie's ties to the unpopular former president George W. Bush, who appointed Christie to the U.S. Attorney's office in 2001. In August 2009, Bush political strategist Karl Rove revealed that he had held conversations with Christie about a potential gubernatorial run during Christie's time as U.S. Attorney. U.S. Attorneys are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activities by the Hatch Act of 1939. Corzine quickly incorporated this into his advertisements targeting Christie.
The Corzine campaign filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act since March 2009 seeking records of budgets, travel expenses, and no-bid contracts from Christie's tenure as U.S. Attorney. The U.S. Attorney's office did not release the requested documents before election day. State Sen. Loretta Weinberg demanded an end to the "logjam" by the U.S. Attorney's office. On August 12, Christie's successor, acting U.S. attorney Ralph J. Marra, Jr., issued a press release defending the office:
The U.S. Attorney's Office has worked as professionally and expeditiously as it can to fulfill all the requests and has been in virtually daily contact with the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) in Washington to accomplish this burdensome and continuous task. ... At absolutely no time has there been an effort to slow down or inhibit the FOIA process.
On August 18, 2009, Christie acknowledged that he had loaned $46,000 to First Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Michele Brown two years ago, while serving as her superior as the state's U.S. attorney, and that he had failed to report the loan on either his income tax returns or his mandatory financial disclosure report to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. In response to the disclosure of the financial relationship between Christie and Brown, Weinberg called on Brown to recuse herself from the task of retrieving U.S. Attorney's Office records requested by the Corzine campaign under the Freedom of Information Act. On August 25, Brown resigned from her post, stating that she does not want to be "a distraction" for the office. Although the Corzine campaign sought to make the loan a major campaign issue, a Quinnipiac poll showed that only 43% of voters believed that the loan controversy was a legitimate attack, while a plurality of 49% called it an unfair attack.
As of September 20, Corzine had put out 4,806 television advertisements to Christie's 1,393 ads.