Field Set For N.J. Governor Race
A millionaire businessman won New Jersey's Republican gubernatorial primary and earned the right to face Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine in November — the state's first race for governor since James McGreevey resigned in a gay-sex scandal.
Doug Forrester edged former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler in Tuesday's primary after spending millions of his own fortune to finance a campaign that took aim at the state's highest-in-the-nation property taxes.
Corzine easily won the Democratic primary after facing only token opposition.
With 99 percent of precincts counted, Forrester had 106,542 votes, or 36 percent, to 93,541 votes, or 31 percent, for Schundler in the seven-way primary. Corzine had 88 percent of the vote.
In other races around the country, a 70-year-old retired judge defeated a 30-year-old Hispanic city councilman in a runoff for mayor of San Antonio, the nation's eighth-largest city.
Forrester promised to "turn Jersey around" in a fiery victory speech in which he attacked the senator as being ill-equipped to solve New Jersey's property tax dilemma.
"He (Corzine) can't fix these problems because he is part of the problem," Forrester said to cheering supporters. "Our victory tonight is a message to Jon Corzine: Don't come home, we can't afford you."
Hours earlier, Corzine accepted his party's nomination without attacking the Republicans or Forrester. "Tonight I make a pledge to the people of New Jersey, I won't be anybody's governor but yours," he said in a veiled reference to New Jersey's image as a state rife with political corruption.Corzine declared his candidacy in December, a month after McGreevey, a fellow Democrat, resigned following his announcement that he had an extramarital affair with a man while in office. The man was later identified as his homeland security adviser.
Corzine's name recognition and wealth — he spent a record $63 million of his own fortune to get elected to the Senate in 2000 — will make the former Goldman Sachs chairman the favorite against Forrester in this Democratic-leaning state. Like his Republican rivals, Corzine has promised property tax relief.
The New Jersey contest is one of only two governor's races being decided this year. The other is in Virginia.
Forrester, 52, is the owner of a prescription drug management company and former mayor of West Windsor, outside Princeton. He spent $7 million of his own money in 2002 trying to win a Senate seat, but Frank Lautenberg came out of retirement and beat him by 10 points.
The winner in November will succeed Democrat Richard J. Codey, who as president of the state Senate became acting governor when McGreevey stepped down. Codey decided not to run for a full term.
In other races Tuesday:
The race was forced into a runoff because neither candidate recieved more than 50 percent of the vote. Castro would have become the second Hispanic elected mayor of a big city in three weeks, following Antonio Villaraigosa's victory in Los Angeles last month.