In evaluating the quality of a New Jersey gubernatorial candidate’s selection of his or her lieutenant governor running mate, there are two criteria, as follows:

First, if the governor can no longer serve, is the prospective running mate qualified to serve as governor?

Second, can the prospective running mate significantly improve the likelihood of victory of the gubernatorial ticket?

Note that these two criteria parallel the standards utilized by presidential candidates in selecting their vice presidential running mates.

In the case of Diane Allen, the running mate choice of GOP gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli, the answer to the first question is an emphatic yes.  Diane Allen has been a superb member of the New Jersey State Senate.  Her insight into state issues is unsurpassed by other members of the legislature, and her effectiveness in securing the passage of legislation has been remarkable.  She possesses outstanding leadership qualities, and her ethics and integrity are unimpeachable.

The answer to the second question is an unfortunate no.   Diane Allen as a running mate cannot improve the election prospects of Jack Ciattarelli.   Diane is a fine running mate, but she is not Mandrake the Magician.  People vote the top of the ticket, and Jack Ciattarelli, in the process of embracing Donald Trump and Trumpism, has built up a myriad of negatives over the past year.

Jack Ciattarelli is now the candidate whose outspoken positions on vaccines, abortion choice, and gender preference tolerance make him anathema to a majority of New Jersey voters.  And while to her credit Diane Allen has never supported Donald Trump, she cannot reinvent Jack Ciattarelli.

Now Trump voters, by and large, are willing to give Jack Ciattarelli a pass on his designation of Diane Allen as his running mate.  But Jack has a forthcoming crisis of his own with the same MAGA voters he worked so hard to attract.

The recent disclosures of Donald Trump’s efforts to use the Justice Department illegally to throw out the election results in Georgia and stage a national coup d’état have presented a political nightmare for Ciattarelli.  If he continues to refrain from repudiating Trump in view of these crimes against American democracy, his abysmal voting numbers among Independents and Democrats will plummet at an accelerating rate.  If on the other hand Jack at long last repudiates Trump and his crimes against American democracy, then Republican base voters, not just MAGA voters, will stay home on Election Day in droves.  And there is nothing Diane Allen can do about that.

It must also be said that while Diane Allen displayed a remarkable ability as a Republican to win election after election to the State Senate in the largely Democratic 7th Legislative District, she had no “coattail” ability to attract Democratic and Independent votes for her Assembly running mates, who always lost while she won.

There is a reason for this.  Candidates with coattail ability are almost always charismatic individuals who generate a passionate following.  Diane Allen generates feelings of enormous respect and admiration among the electorate, but not charisma.

There was such a charismatic candidate in the Ciattarelli LTGOV sweepstakes, albeit one without nearly the qualifications Diane Allen has for the job. I speak of Christine Hanlon, the County Clerk of Monmouth County who in 2020 displayed a preternatural coattail ability to attract votes for her county freeholder (commissioner) running mates.

I do not know if Christine sought the running mate position and was turned down by Ciattarelli or if vice versa Jack offered the position to Christine but was turned down by her.  There is no doubt in my mind that Christine Hanlon is a Republican superstar with an excellent prospect at a gubernatorial run down the road.  A landslide defeat on a Ciattarelli-Hanlon ticket would have impaired that future.

Someday, New Jersey political historians may regard Christine Hanlon in 2021 as similar to John F. Kennedy in 1956.  JFK was most fortunate that he wasn’t chosen as Adlai Stevenson’s running mate in that year, thus avoiding going down to a landslide defeat with the Man from Libertyville and being able to win the White House four years later.  And Christine appears to have dodged a career damaging defeat by not being chosen as Jack Ciattarelli’s running mate in 2021

The dynamics of the 2021 New Jersey Governor’s race consist of a popular incumbent Democratic governor; a Republican Party with 1) a rapidly shrinking base, 2) a gubernatorial candidate with daily increasing negatives, and 3) the albatross of Trump; a growing African-American vote trending overwhelmingly Democratic and turning out in increasing numbers; and polls showing a major advantage for the Democrats on key issues.  These dynamics preceded the selection of Diane Allen as Jack Ciattarelli’s running mate and remain unchanged.

Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.