87-year old New Jersey Republican State Senator switches parties and will run as a Democrat

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1624928464708018183
LMAO. And for the record by most accounts this guy is pretty conservative, the primary challenge is mostly over his age...and uh well, look at the guy.

Really hoping the Democrats nominate someone else although it looks to be a Safe R seat no matter what. Yep it's a Trump 56-Biden 42 district and Murphy lost it by 27 points...LOL.

[Oryxslayer]

A very red district, and given past votes, not likely to receive much welcome from his "new" party. It appears a move out of desperation: expecting to easily lose the GOP primary based on the county line endorsement loses, he's gonna try a Hail Mary on the other side of the ballot.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Seems like Arlen Spector 2.0

[GeorgiaModerate]

If you're 87 years old and facing a losing race, maybe it's time to just retire.

[Sir Mohamed]

Seems like Arlen Spector 2.0

Specter probably was more moderate than this dude?

[Ragnaroni]

This guy should just retire and go be with his grandkids (if he has any).

[Vice President Christian Man]

Seems like Arlen Spector 2.0

Specter probably was more moderate than this dude?

Definitely it’s just the closest comparison.

[Suburbia]

He should retire.

A lot of these old politicians don't want to give up power, he should have retired since 2017 or in 2021...

[BenjiG98]

The funniest thing about this is that he didn't tell leadership ahead of time and they only found out reading the news. What the hell is this guy thinking?

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1625145369368711168?s=20

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

Chad.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Maybe last night was the last straw for some people...

If he plans on continuing voting like a right-wing Republican, then there's no reason for Democrats to support him or accept him in their caucus (unless some law says they have to). If he's willing to make some policy concessions -- which he might as well since I'd imagine this term would be his last -- then maybe it doesn't matter. Smaller stakes than the US Congress and all, and the legislature's not flipping.

New Jersey's a machine state, though. Whatever the establishment wants in this state is what they're gonna get.

[Minnesota Mike]

This guy should just retire and go be with his grandkids (if he has any).

His grandkids (if he has any) are probably in their 30's and 40's.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Maybe last night was the last straw for some people...

If he plans on continuing voting like a right-wing Republican, then there's no reason for Democrats to support him or accept him in their caucus (unless some law says they have to). If he's willing to make some policy concessions -- which he might as well since I'd imagine this term would be his last -- then maybe it doesn't matter. Smaller stakes than the US Congress and all, and the legislature's not flipping.

New Jersey's a machine state, though. Whatever the establishment wants in this state is what they're gonna get.

There's really no reason for Democrats to support him.

Minnesota has a kind of similar story: some guy represented a very ancestrally R (Like >70% for Goldwater) State House district since 1991, (FYI my church is actually there.) He was though more moderate than the rest of the caucus, especially after the 21st century started and most of the moderates retired or were primaried out but never had any trouble. That changed in 2008 when the DFL Legislature successfully managed to override Pawlenty's veto of a transportation funding bill, Pawlenty vetoed it because he opposed the 5-cent a gallon gas tax increase to fund most of its projects even though the gas tax had not been raised in 20 years. The DFL had just short of a supermajority in the House, but five Republicans crossed over to vote for it including him. Well that angered the right and they rallied around his primary challenger.

At the convention he lost the Republican endorsement, and he had pledged to not run for the Republican nomination in the primary if he lost the endorsement, and he held to that...but instead he ran in the general election as a third party (I believe he literally ran under the "Moderate Independent" ticket as a party name), and promised to caucus with the majority. And thus in that 3-way race a hard right Republican was able to get elected in a district that Obama carried by double digits and the DFL won all surrounding districts in a landslide. And then in 2010 said Republican was able to narrowly survive via the GOP wave.

So then came 2012 and the DFL were certain they could take the seat because Obama was obviously going to carry it by a lot...which was correct, but guess who the candidate was? Yep that now former incumbent filed as a Democrat and stupidly the field cleared for him. He won the primary and the general election easily. Keep in mind this guy is now 82 years old, so he really should've just have been enjoying retirement.

In 2014 he did manage to narrowly survive and it was clear voters were sick of him, so he faced a primary challenge in 2016...but the convention voters decided to nominate an 86-year old dinosaur over a 37-year old. And then...he lost! He actually lost to another supposedly "moderate" Republican who to be fair did have a bit of a moderate voting record but still meant another seat in the R caucus. And you got to remember this is with Trump absolutely hitting the floor in this district, in 2012 Romney actually didn't do that bad and had a respectable loss...this guy was representing a district that was like Hillary+18.

Well unsurprisingly he lost in 2018 and the seat flipped to a Democrat who now holds it today, although he probably doesn't mind because afterwards he renounced the GOP and then ran and won for a spot on the Hennepin County Commission that he won and holds now (Hennepin County Commissioners get paid like $130k/year annual salary, while state legislators get in the $40k range...most other counties in the metro pay similarly so county commissions are full of ex-legislators, even mine is a former one-term DFL State Rep from Minneapolis who ran for that job as soon as one opened up.)...but the DFL could've avoided that by simply not dealing with that guy to begin with.

[Ragnaroni]

This guy should just retire and go be with his grandkids (if he has any).

His grandkids (if he has any) are probably in their 30's and 40's.

OK maybe he really doesn't have anything to do so he's sticking around in politics.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

This guy should just retire and go be with his grandkids (if he has any).

His grandkids (if he has any) are probably in their 30's and 40's.

OK maybe he really doesn't have anything to do so he's sticking around in politics.

This would explain a lot actually given the median age of someone in Congress.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Whatever the calculation is behind this I'm just glad to see a Republican switching to being a Democrat for once. We've seen way too much of the reverse.

[ChiefFireWaterMike]

If you're 87 years old and facing a losing race, maybe it's time to just retire.

Yeah, at this point, why even stay, damned if you do, and if you don't. You clearly aren't gonna make it to 100.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Could he win a Democratic primary?  Possibly, but he'd have to convince the liberal Democratic primary electorate that half a Democrat is better than no Democrat at all.

[Roll Roons]

Btw, he's actually retiring after all. Safe R, just as it was before.

The new senator will very likely be Owen Henry, the mayor of Old Bridge, allowing Republicans to continue having a senator from Middlesex County. NJ has a funny unofficial system called senatorial courtesy where a senator can block a governor's nominee if that person comes from the senator's home county or is a resident of their legislative district.
 
So the NJ GOP having a senator from the second most populous county in the state is a pretty big deal, especially since said county is solidly blue.

[Badger]

This guy should just retire and go be with his grandkids (if he has any).

His age, I'd guess great-grandkids.

[Ragnaroni]

This guy should just retire and go be with his grandkids (if he has any).

His age, I'd guess great-grandkids.

Fair enough! I wonder if the connection between great grandfather and great grandkids is weaker than the one between grandparents and the grandkids though

[Not Me, Us]

This guy should just retire and go be with his grandkids (if he has any).

His age, I'd guess great-grandkids.

Fair enough! I wonder if the connection between great grandfather and great grandkids is weaker than the one between grandparents and the grandkids though

My great grandfather died when I was around 5 or 6, and I barely knew him. Granted, he lived in Minnesota and I was in Pennsylvania, so I'm sure if we had lived more nearby we'd've been closer.