FORDS – Former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie won his 14th Republican organization endorsement for governor today, winning the line in heavily Democratic Middlesex County.
“We’re going to work very hard here not only in the governor’s race, but every race here up and down the ticket, because it is time to bring back Republican values to Middlesex County,” said Chrsitie.
Christie got 462 votes to former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan’s 122, Assemblyman Rick Merkt’s (R-Mendham) six, inventor David Brown’s four and Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine’s one.
The convention took place at The Royal Albert’s Palace, a cavernous Indian-theme hall where the two ornately decorated elephants above the podium weren’t originally intended to evoke the GOP, but served that purpose anyway.
Unlike other county conventions, this one was open, with any registered Republican from Middlesex County – not just committeemen and women –able to pay a $10 fee and cast a vote. Campaigns could even pay for their own delegates. That gave Christie rival Steve Lonegan, whose campaign has often complained of a biased convention process, an opportunity to turn out his supporters en masse. But Lonegan campaign officials said they didn't campaign much harder here than anywhere else.
Lonegan showed up to speak, as he has at several conventions and screening committee meetings, but said that his campaign did not make much more of an effort than usual to turn out the vote.
“Some of my core volunteers got some delegates together, but we haven’t spent any resources on it,” said Lonegan. “I have supporters here, and I owe it to them to be here and make a speech.”
The campaign paid for the admission of about 20 delegates, most of whom had already donated to the campaign, said strategist Rick Shaftan.
Middlesex County Republican Chairman Joe Leo said that just shy of 900 people registered to vote at the convention. And even if the turnout of actual voters wasn't close to that, the many seats in the hall were filled.
“You know the Democrats are saying we’ve got Middlesex County locked up. I’ve got a message for Gov. Corzine: come look at this room today,” said state Sen. Bill Baroni (R-Mercer) in his keynote speech.
