NJ-11: Sherrill (D) vs Webber (R) Deep in the Heart of Suburbia

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

Couldn’t find the old NJ-11 thread so starting this new one. The stage is half set for one of the country’s marquee house races in the affluent suburbs west of New York City, because as of this writing the R primary is still in the air after a surprisingly strong showing by businessman Peter Deneufville. I saw a ton of Denuefville signs around but since this isn’t Northern Illinois those signs don’t vote, so I figured Webber would win easily anyway. This seems not to be the case (Denuefville won my precinct!) and if he does win, it’ll be the first major Republican own-goal of the primary season, as Denuefville has almost no money to counter the well-funded Sherill.

On the D side, I had the exact opposite experience. I knew Sherrill had the money and institutional support (whatever Dem institutions there are out here), but I thought it would be close because of what happened to Ashford in NE-02 since Harris was hammering Sherrill on being a “fake Democrat who voted for Chris Christie” and because  I saw a massive amount of Tamara Harris signs long before I saw I saw anything for Sherrill. But again, this isn’t Northern Illinois, so Sherrill still won handily, and will be a very formidable candidate even if she faces Webber.

Personally, I believe this race is Lean D because of the national environment/trends and because Phil Murphy, by virtue of winning the district in his race last year despite getting a smaller margin than Hillary statewide, showed that if the GOP gets absolutely BTFO in the Uber-wealthy Essex suburbs (Livingston/Montclair/etc) and Dems keep the margins down in WWC Wayne and the blue collar pockets in Morris (Rockaway/Lincoln Park/etc) then they still win district wide even if they do worse than Hillary in the white collar Morris suburbs.

Anyone else notice anything interesting in this primary? Thoughts on the general?

Edit: Lol they called it for Webber as I was typing this. Still think it’s lean D because of factors mentioned above, this just keeps it from going likely/safe D.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

If this is an Ariel reference, that song actually refers to NJ-5.

Anyway, looks like Webber will be the nominee which makes this a true toss-up for me. Tilt D if I had a gun to my head thanks to the national environment and Sherrill's fundraising. She is the top D recruit in the state not counting JVD.

Webber is an extremely strong campaigner and a truly brilliant guy; I expect(ed) him to run for governor at some point, which is probably off the table if he loses here. His major weakness is his strong movement conservatism, but he's a good salesman for his cause.

edit: Where did you see DeNeufville signs? I was just in the district last week and saw more of Ghee's than his, and way more of Webber's than either. I was mostly in the eastern Morris towns.

I was actually alluding to “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” haha. That’s certainly a solid analysis of the race, we have two excellent candidates going toe-to-toe in what has become a 50/50 district, so an edge to Sherrill at this stage is certainly not unreasonable given national conditions. As for the De Neufville signs, I saw them all over Denville, Morris Plains, and Morristown. I haven’t ventured much outside of that area because I’ve just been driving between my house and the train station to commute to my internship, so it may not have had as widespread coverage as I assumed.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

If this is an Ariel reference, that song actually refers to NJ-5.

Anyway, looks like Webber will be the nominee which makes this a true toss-up for me. Tilt D if I had a gun to my head thanks to the national environment and Sherrill's fundraising. She is the top D recruit in the state not counting JVD.

Webber is an extremely strong campaigner and a truly brilliant guy; I expect(ed) him to run for governor at some point, which is probably off the table if he loses here. His major weakness is his strong movement conservatism, but he's a good salesman for his cause.

edit: Where did you see DeNeufville signs? I was just in the district last week and saw more of Ghee's than his, and way more of Webber's than either. I was mostly in the eastern Morris towns.

I was actually alluding to “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” haha. That’s certainly a solid analysis of the race, we have two excellent candidates going toe-to-toe in what has become a 50/50 district, so an edge to Sherrill at this stage is certainly not unreasonable given national conditions. As for the De Neufville signs, I saw them all over Denville, Morris Plains, and Morristown. I haven’t ventured much outside of that area because I’ve just been driving between my house and the train station to commute to my internship, so it may not have had as widespread coverage as I assumed.

Was it very recently? Could be that they went up in the past few days.

Usually a huge influx of signage on Election Eve (usually found on public land or berms) is a hint that the campaign has a lot of money, but not a lot of authentic support – otherwise they'd be on private lawns weeks in advance. I saw a lot of Hugin signs put up just this morning as well.

That kind of sounds like the DeNeufville campaign as I've read it described. I still think he was put up to it by Passaic folks trying to snipe at Webber from the right so that Ghee could take the victory from the left/center. Glad Webber snatched the victory – the people of this district should be well-served whoever wins, though I have a feeling this will get nasty fast.

IIRC the line in Ariel was "deep in the bosom of suburbia".

Haven't heard that song in years.  Thanks for reminding me of it.

I try to keep my pedantry relevant to the board's topic, so I let that one slide.

For anyone unfamiliar, Ariel is a classic; play it any time you're reading about NJ-5 or -11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONXQbbJJLuM

I remember seeing a bunch around once I came home from school on May 17th, but yeah they were mostly in public places. Most of the Webber signs I saw were in yards, particularly in the towns near me that are in or adjacent to his assembly district (Parsippany, Morris Plains, and Morris Twp primarily). Although driving to the train station this morning I did notice a De Nuefville sign in my neighbor's yard, so he did have at least a little bit of genuine support that wasn't just people seeing his name on the signs (obviously, since he came surprisingly close district-wide and won my precinct).

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

One note: I think Menendez is going to be saved by the energy generated by house candidates--Sherrill, JVD, Andy Kim, Josh Welle and even Malinowski are generated a tremendous amount of Dem enthusiasm outside of the traditional Democratic base areas in the state. Almost all of these enthused voters will support Menendez even if they hate him

Yup. Voted for Mccormick yesterday and was shocked at how close she came, but assuming Menendez doesn't get shuffled aside a la Torricelli at some point I will still, begrudgingly, be voting for him in November.