New Jersey Senate Race a Referendum on Christie as Unions Back Democrat
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said, “New Jersey has gone for too long and for too many decades ordering things that it can’t pay for.” Photographer/Tim Larsen/Office of the Governor via Bloomberg
New Jersey’s organized labor and major political parties are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into a special election to serve one year of a vacated state Senate seat, a race that may test the strength of first- term Governor Chris Christie’s attack on employee unions.
Candidates in the 14th District, which includes suburbs of the capital city of Trenton and is home to thousands of state workers, have spent $1.2 million, more than 80 percent of the total for New Jersey’s legislative elections on Nov. 2. The Democrat seeking that seat, Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein, raised $876,000 through Oct. 26 with help from unions for teachers and public employees, campaign-finance reports show.
Greenstein faces incumbent Tom Goodwin, the first New Jersey Republican to seek election