A replacement for Frank Lautenberg
will be selected this October
At a press conference this afternoon, Republican Gov. Chris Christie announced that a special election to fill the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg's Senate seat would take place on Oct. 16 (a Wednesday), with a primary to be held on Aug. 13. This move will undoubtedly please Democrats, who will have the chance to replace Lautenberg quickly. And Christie, who is up for re-election this November, gets to avoid sharing a ballot with a popular Democrat such as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who has long had his eye on the Senate.
Republican partisans will probably be upset, though, since an interim pick (which Christie did not yet announce) could have conceivably served through at least November 2014, giving the GOP one extra vote on the Senate floor for almost 18 months. And the advantages of quasi-incumbency might have given that temporary Republican senator a fighting chance of winning an election for a full term. Instead, the GOP will have just a few months to gear up for special election in a blue state, and even if the appointee were to run, Democrats would still be strongly favored.
Christie's decision also avoids a legal battle, as Democrats had been insisting that a special take place this year; now, they've gotten what they wanted. However, New Jersey law remains unclear on when exactly vacancies should be filled by special elections, so this issue could well come up again another day. In the meantime, ambitious Democrats will have to decide whether they want to make a go of this race, or whether they'll defer to the well-funded Booker, who is furthest along in his preparations to run. We'll be following all developments here closely.
11:06 AM PT: Great headline: "Christie Previously Signed Law to Consolidate Elections to Save Money." Christie's explanation, by the way, for why the Senate special won't take place on the same day as the regular November general election is because he would have had to wait 10 days to issue the writ calling for the election in the first place. Obviously that's a bogus rationalization.