NJCD-9: Billy Prempeh as MAGA candidate against Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.
The Ninth District encompasses 35 municipalities in Bergen, Passaic, and Hudson Counties.
The regional Republicans have allowed Prempeh to rise on the ticket to be the nominee for Congress three times. There have been other qualified candidates, but Prempeh gets financial and political support.
And he's not a John McCain conservative Republican. He's a Donald Trump MAGA. He enthusiastically supports a program called Restore America. Christian RW hate. https://restoreamerica.org/
While a neighboring district (NJCD-5) has had to endure RWNJ's as a representative in the past (Ernest Scott Garrett), it also once boosted a progressive Republican for many years, Marge Roukema.
The only thing I can come up with to explain why a notorious MAGA candidate has seemingly traction in a district with a mix of highly educated white collar families as well as blue collar families is twofold:
1) A vote for Prempeh is vicariously a vote for Trump.
2) The republican candidates in the past have fared poorly against Bill Pascrell.* My guess is that there will be a different type of "Republican" if Pascrell becomes infirmed and/or decides not to run after this term. IOW, Bill Prempeh is a symbolic "placeholder" and not a candidate NJCD-9 Republicans expect to win an election.
* Shmuley Boteach, rabbi and author of Kosher Sex in 2012, Dierdre Paul in 2014, Hector Castillo (2016), and Eric Fisher (2018) captured no more than 32% of the votes in the general elections. Prempeh got 43.6% in 2022 which admittedly is better than his predecessors, but not enough to get him to Congress.
I'll give this to Prempeh though: his supporters strongly support him although one has doubts about whether they know the issues and Project 2025.
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