Democratic contest expected for Lautenberg's seat

Two New Jersey congressmen said Friday they are seeking the Democratic nomination in the special election to replace U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Frank Pallone and Rush Holt are likely to be contesting the race with Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who has said he will make an announcement Saturday, The New York Times reported. If he wins the nomination and the Oct. 16 election, Booker would be the first African-American to win a state-wide office in New Jersey. Booker has scheduled events Saturday in Newark and in Willingboro, a majority-black town in southern New Jersey, although those could be disrupted by Tropical Storm Andrea, Politico said. The only Republican candidate so far is Steve Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota, a small suburb in northern New Jersey, the Times reported. Lonegan, a conservative who currently serves as state director of Americans for Prosperity, has run unsuccessfully twice for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, and once for Congress. Pallone, who has been in Congress since 1994 representing a central New Jersey district, has a bigger war chest than Booker or Holt. Holt, a physicist whose supporters sport bumper stickers reading "My congressman IS a rocket scientist," is popular in his Princeton-area district but little-known in the rest of the state. New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, scheduled a special election for October, only three weeks before the state's off-year gubernatorial election. Critics suggested Christie feared being on the same ballot as Booker. The primary is scheduled for Aug. 13, and candidates must declare by Monday. Experts say this race is a hard one to call because of the timing. "There's nothing we can go on that can help us predict who's going to show up and vote," Patrick Murray, a pollster at Monmouth University, told the Times.