‘Solid South’ Cements Booker as Frontrunner

By Mark J. Magyar (courtesy of NJ Spotlight)

Wednesday's endorsement of Newark Mayor Cory Booker by Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald (D-Camden), and the Democratic leadership of seven South Jersey counties signaled more than an emerging power coalition.

Coming on the heels of endorsements by South Jersey powerbroker George Norcross and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, the public support of the “Solid South,” as Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) put it, cemented Booker’s position as the clear frontrunner in the August 13 special U.S. Senate primary for the seat held for 28 of the past 30 years by the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-NJ). It also signaled the emergence of a clear ideological divide in the U.S. Senate race that will pit centrist “new Democrats” who worked closely with Republican Gov. Chris Christie on budget and education issues against the liberal “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” that has bucked Christie at every turn.

Booker, Sweeney, and Greenwald made that clear with their repeated emphasis on the Democratic U.S. Senate frontrunner’s ability to “work across the aisle to get things done,” and their shared belief that Booker would bring the same ability to “break through the partisan gridlock in Washington” that he and South Jersey Democrats demonstrated with Christie in Trenton.

“They have to talk about issues of reaching across the aisle because Booker has done that and is most likely to get attacked by his primary opponents over it,” said Ben Dworkin, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics. “He can’t run away from it, so he is embracing the ability to be seen as bipartisan.”

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