Below The Beltway

Back in 2002 former Congressman Robert Toricelli was running for the Senate from New Jersey when he became the subject of a wide-ranging corruption investigation. In classic New Jersey political fashion, the state’s Democrats replaced him on the ticket with former Senator Frank Lautenberg even though the law forbid them from doing it:

Lautenberg unexpectedly returned to politics in 2002, when the other New Jersey senator, Democrat Robert Torricelli, withdrew his candidacy for reelection, because of corruption charges. It was rumored, however, that Lautenberg was the second choice to run, the first choice being former Senator Bill Bradley, who turned it down.

The selection of Lautenberg came with some irony, as there had been notoriously bad blood between Lautenberg and Torricelli when the two had served together in the Senate.[2]

The New Jersey Republican Party challenged the replacement of Torricelli’s name on the ballot with Lautenberg’s, arguing that it came too late according to state election laws. The ballot name change was unanimously upheld by the New Jersey Supreme Court[3], and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case. Lautenberg won the election, defeating his Republican challenger, businessman Doug Forrester, by 54% to 44%.

If Toricelli had been forced to stay in the race, he would have lost to Forrester by a wide margin.

That, combined with Lautenberg’s age, he’s 85, made it look like the New Jersey GOP might actually have a shot at his seat this year.

Unfortunately, their leading candidate has dropped out of the race:

TRENTON — Ever since Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, who is 84, made it clear that he intended to seek re-election in November, the conventional wisdom had been that health would be a factor in the race.

On Wednesday, it was.

Anne Estabrook, a real estate developer whose wealth had made her appealing to New Jersey’s Republican establishment, abruptly dropped out of the race to challenge Mr. Lautenberg, a Democrat, saying that she had suffered a slight stroke earlier in the week.

The departure of Ms. Estabrook stunned the state’s political establishment, which had viewed her as the front-runner among the three candidates seeking the party’s nomination in the June primary.

(…)

On Wednesday, Republicans wrestled over whether to recruit another candidate or coalesce behind one of two conservatives seeking the party nomination: State Senator Joseph Pennacchio, a dentist and a veteran legislator from Morris County, and Murray Sabrin, a finance professor at Ramapo College who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for United States Senate in 2000.

One possibility, a name with a long history in the state GOP: Tom Kean, Jr.