SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — Republican Party leaders in New Jersey have scrapped an idea that would have eliminated the state’s presidential primary in favor of a delegate-based system.
New Jersey’s June primary is after the deadline the Republican National Committee set for delegate counts. State GOP officials floated the idea of going with a caucus of insiders to pick a nominee at a convention rather than a primary with the Garden State’s 1.5 million registered Republicans.
Micah Rasmussen, from Rider University’s Rebovich Institute, says the idea was unanimously abandoned at a state GOP meeting, and rightfully so.
“This clearly went over like a lead balloon,” said Rasmussen. “There were questions about whether or not it was going to allow the process to be manipulated and deliver a result that was going to be favorable to someone like Chris Christie, who is, you know, a favorite son for New Jersey Republicans.”
Many current elected Republicans hated the idea from the start, including state Sen. Doug Steinhardt, which is why it was so swiftly dismissed.
“We’d rather argue this out with the Republican National Committee than leave 1.5 million Republican voters sitting on the sidelines, unable to participate in the presidential selection process,” said Steinhardt.
The primary date, he adds, is state law. “Title 19 requires that the primary election takes place on a specific date in June,” he said.
Steinhardt, a former New Jersey GOP chairman, says it’s been common practice to deliver primary results to the RNC as soon as they can, and he expects it’ll be the same next year.
As for who came up with the idea, Rasmussen says whoever proposed it quickly disowned it. “This is one of those things that nobody wants to take credit for at this point,” he said. “Everybody kind of rejected ownership of the idea.”