New Jersey Democrats paid a political price for being “off mainstream” in the last election, according to state Senate President Nick Scutari.
“I think whenever a political party gets too off mainstream, they pay a price for it,” Scutari said during an event at Rowan University Monday night.
Scutari (D-Union) owes his position at the top of the Senate to the shocking defeat in November of Senate President Steve Sweeney, who for years was a proponent of fiscal policies that represented the more conservative side of the Democratic Party.
But after the November election, in which Gov. Phil Murphy won reelection by defeating Republican Jack Ciattarelli by a narrower-than-expected 3 percentage points, some Democrats, including Sweeney allies, blamed the governor’s unabashed progressivism for juicing Republican turnout.
Democrats saw a net loss of seven legislative seats in the election — six in the Assembly and one in the Senate. The bulk of those losses were suffered by South Jersey Democrats.
The results led to finger-pointing within the party over which ideological direction it should take. Scutari, in his comments Monday evening, signaled that he’s aligned with the views held by those sympathetic to Sweeney and South Jersey Democrats, who have generally been more conservative than their North Jersey counterparts.
“You hear people … loud from the left, loud from the right. And then there's this kind of mainstream America, which I'm a believer is where most people are,” Scutari said. “I thought that the campaign in New Jersey was almost a primary election that was run instead of the general election. I think that was reflected at the polls. A much closer election than we had anticipated.”
Scutari, though a North Jersey Democrat, has developed alliances with members of his party from South Jersey. A super PAC closely tied to Democratic power broker George Norcross is hosting a fundraiser honoring him next week.
Norcross last week held a meeting with well over 100 South Jersey Democrats to talk about the troubling political environment for Democrats and ways forward, emphasizing issues like taxes, spending freezes, jobs and inflation over social issues.
Sue Altman, executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance and top critic of South Jersey Democrats, said blaming progressivism for Democratic losses that were mainly concentrated in South Jersey is “ridiculous Monday morning quarterbacking.”
“I think in places where the Democratic Party has not delivered for the people, which is South Jersey in particular, Democrats have either become disillusioned and are voting in very, very small numbers or they defected to the Republican side,” Altman said.
Altman said progressive economic issues, such as increasing the minimum wage, fully funding the pension system and improving public transportation, are popular with voters. Sweeney played an integral role in pushing through the ballot question to gradually increase New Jersey’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and passed budgets that increased the state’s pension contributions, but has also called for major cutbacks to future pensions.
Altman said New Jersey Democrats suffered from trends that have hurt the party all over the country.
“We also can’t ignore that there are national trends that are going to invade our shores in New Jersey," she said. "A campaign, no matter how well run or how poorly run, will have to contend with things that are far bigger."
