New Jersey voters went to the polls Tuesday, or at least some of them did, and chose a Republican candidate to run against embattled Democratic Governor Jon Corzine. Former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie beat former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan 55 percent to 42 percent in the Republican primary. This was labeled by many as a contest between a moderate and a conservative, but that is not quite what it was. Christie was pretty solidly conservative on the major issue facing state government—the fact that spending is outpacing revenues, and high taxes are squeezing the private sector economy—while Lonegan’s positions on some issues were, well, pretty eccentric.

The decline in Democratic turnout, taken with the polling which has shown Corzine trailing Christie by significant margins all year, suggests that Democrats will have more trouble rallying the party faithful to the polls than the Republicans.

Christie carried 17 of the 21 counties. He lost exurban counties on the western edge of the state—Hunterdon, Warren, and Sussex Counties along the Delaware River north of Trenton, and Salem County on the lower Delaware River opposite the state of Delaware. I suppose you could say this is New Jersey’s most conservative country, with Hunterdon and Sussex being pretty reliably Republican. But Warren County is less Republican and Salem County, with oil tank farms and views of refineries, is a pretty gritty industrial county. And Christie did very well, 59 percent, in New Jersey’s exurban Ocean County, one of the fastest-growing parts of the state, with many retirees from New York and a pretty good Republican voting history.

What I find most amazing is the low turnout. In a state with 8,683,000 people only 329,000 people voted in the seriously contested Republican primary and only 193,000 in the not seriously contested Democratic primary, in which Corzine got 77 percent of the vote against three unknown rivals.

Such low participation is astonishing because a New Jersey governor has more raw power than the governor of any other state. There are no other elected statewide officials (though there will be lieutenant governor candidates on both tickets this year for the first time) and the governor appoints the state attorney general and all 21 county prosecutors. In a state where local corruption presents prosecutors with a target-rich environment, that is power indeed.

There are some interesting things to be said about turnout. In a decade when turnout has been sharply rising, and when victory has tended to go to the party that has a more enthusiastic base, the numbers here do not look particularly good for the Republicans—but look worse for the Democrats. Here are the turnout figures for each party’s last three gubernatorial primaries; only the 2009 and 2001 Republican primaries were seriously contested.

Thus Republican turnout was down 2 percent from 2001 to 2009, both seriously contested primaries, while Democratic turnout was down 26 percent from 2001 to 2009, both not seriously contested primaries. Local factors may have been at work here; presumably turnout is higher in counties where there are serious contests for legislative seats. Still, the decline in Democratic turnout, taken with the polling which has shown Corzine trailing Christie by significant margins all year, suggests that Democrats will have more trouble rallying the party faithful to the polls than the Republicans.

In a state with 8,682,000 people only 329,000 people voted in the Republican primary and only 193,000 in the Democratic primary.

Where did Republican primary turnout rise and fall? It was down 52 percent in Hudson County, presumably because that is the home base of the 2001 primary winner, Bret Schundler, who was Mayor of Jersey City. It was also down 27 percent in Essex and Union Counties and 15 percent in Bergen County. These are counties which have seen an influx of immigrants in this decade and a large outflow of non-immigrants—and, apparently, Republicans. Republican turnout was also down 16 percent in Mercer County (Trenton and Princeton, inner city and upscale liberals) and 13 percent in Cumberland County (low income whites on the flatlands between the Delaware Memorial Bridge and Atlantic City). Republican turnout was up 31 percent in Hunterdon County (exurbs northwest of Trenton), 29 percent in Ocean County (mentioned above), and 19 percent in Gloucester County (the fastest-growing South Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia). Republican voters seem to be moving out of the close-in suburbs near immigrant-heavy central cities and into exurbs.

Where did Democratic turnout rise and fall? It rose in only three counties, exurban Hunterdon (16 percent), industrial Salem (8 percent), and suburban Burlington (3 percent). It fell 46 percent in Passaic County, where the Democratic base is increasingly Hispanic, 41 percent in Essex County (Newark), where the Democratic base is heavily black, 32 percent in Hudson County, with lots of Hispanic immigrants, and 30 percent in Bergen County, where many smaller towns once the home of the grandchildren of Ellis Island immigrants are now the homes of much later arrivals. In 2005 Corzine carried these counties by 201,000 votes—84 percent of his statewide margin of 239,000. In addition, Democratic turnout was down 38 percent in Monmouth County and 33 percent in Ocean County, the two counties that include the Jersey Shore north of Atlantic City. That is not a good sign for Corzine either.

Bottom line: the outlook is good for Christie in New Jersey. He is not assured of victory, and he is assured of being outspent by Corzine. Corzine has used the millions he earned at Goldman Sachs in the 1990s not only to self-finance his own campaigns for senator in 2000 and governor in 2005, but also to inject huge chunks of money into county Democratic organizations and into neighborhood groups in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. But can money buy you love? The primary returns suggest the answer this year may be no. 

Michael Barone is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

FURTHER READING: Barone recently wrote “GOP Should Run against the Power of the Center,” on how Republicans should run against the centralized government institutions being created and strengthened every day, and “On Guns and Climate, the Elites Are Out of Touch.”

Image by Dianna Ingram/Bergman Group.