New Jersey primary

[img_assist|nid=18131|title=Frank Lautenberg, 84, won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, defeating Rob Andrews by a wide margin|desc=Getty Images Photo|link=none|align=none|width=420|height=265]

Incumbent Frank Lautenberg has won renomination for a fifth term in the United States Senate. He leads Rep. Rob Andrews by a 61%-34% margin. Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello is running a weak third with 5% of the vote. Lautenberg won huge margins in Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Passaic counties, carried Middlesex and Union comfortably, and held his own in several South Jersey counties.

In the GOP primary, former Rep. Dick Zimmer leads State Sen. Joe Pennacchio by a 46-40% margin. Ramapo College Professor Murray Sabrin has 14% of the vote.

Today is Tuesday, February 26, 2008 – the original early date of the New Jersey Presidential primary after the Legislature moved it up from June and before they moved it to the first Monday in February, Super Tuesday.  At the time it seemed like the right call – the only opponents to the date change were a scattering of John McCain supporters who didn’t want to see Rudy Giuliani score an early victory.  But imagine what today might have been like had the eyes of America been on New Jersey on a day when no other states have primaries scheduled.

State Senator Raymond Lesniak, one of the state’s most powerful political insiders and perhaps the New Jerseyan with the closest and longest personal ties to the Clinton family, seems to think Barack Obama will be the 2008 Democratic nominee for President.  "It's over,” Lesniak told Home News columnist Rick Malwitz. 

When New Jersey originally moved the presidential primary from June to become more relevant in the nominating process, it was set for the fourth week in February. Later, when Super Tuesday began to take shape on February 5, the Legislature voted to move the New Jersey primary to that date. The political poobahs thought the battle for the nomination would be over on Super Tuesday.

It’s almost a week after the primary in New Jersey, and the Democratic State Committee knows how many delegates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will get.

But it’s not clear exactly who those delegates will be, except for the 20 “superdelegates” who automatically get to go to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Senate President Richard Codey lost his first election of his 35-year political career on Tuesday when he was defeated in a race for delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Codey, who was listed on the ballot with John Edwards, received just 746 votes. In Codey’s delegate district, Barack Obama (who had Codey’s support) beat Hillary Clinton by just 732 votes – 28,777 to 28,045. For the record, eight Democrats, including the Rev. Reginald Jackson, Essex County Freeholder Patricia Sebold, and Democratic strategist Phil Alagia can say they once beat Codey in a Democratic primary.

The Star-Ledger's Andrew Garcia Phillips has a rather excellent interactive map of the 2008 New Jersey presidential primary, with town-by-town results.

The Democratic State Committee released its unofficial delegate numbers today.

Of the 107 total pledged delegates, Hillary Clinton will get 59 to Barack Obama’s 48.

For Clinton, that includes 38 of the pledged district delegates who were on the ballot yesterday and 21 of the at-large delegates and local officials. Obama got 32 of the pledged district delegates and 16 of the at-large delegates.

Clinton gets 13 of the 20 super delegates, while Obama gets only one. Four super delegates have not yet declared, while two others have not yet been selected.

It’s unclear exactly which delegates that were on the ballot get to go to the Democratic National Convention in Denver come August.

The Republican delegate apportionment system is winner-take-all, although voters won't technically select delegates until the June primary.

The 2008 New Jersey presidential primary set a voter turnout records the Democrats. Over 1.1 million Democrats cast their votes in the early, unusually relevant, New Jersey primary.

In the last three presidential elections where New Jersey’s Democratic primary was held before any candidate won a majority of votes, the turnout was considerably less: 676,561 in 1984, 527,496 in 1980, and 360,835 in 1976.