Conservative Republican Jeff Bell, a champion of the gold standard and Ronald Reagan-style Republican who defeated a GOP incumbent in the 1978 U.S. Senate Primary and was again New Jersey’s Republican nominee for Senate in 2014, has died.

“Jeff Bell, 1943-2018,” his friend William Kristol tweeted. “I’m very sorry to report the sad news that Jeff Bell died suddenly last night. He was a kind and generous man with an original mind, a fighting spirit, and a deep faith. I admired him and am grateful to have been his friend.”

Mr. Bell was 74.

Following his historic GOP Primary win against incumbent Senator Clifford Case (and subsequent loss to Bill Bradley) in 1978, Mr. Bell served as the textbook NJ example of the power a conservative candidate possesses in the primary – and the difficulty he faces in the general.

He attempted a comeback in 1982, but lost the GOP Primary for Senate to U.S. Rep. Millicent Fenwick (54-46%). Ms. Fenwick would go on to lose the general election to U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). Mr. Bell tried a second comeback in 2014, surprised (despite his own gold standard example) people again when he won the GOP Primary, then lost to U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) in the general 56-42%. Booker had replaced the late Mr. Lautenberg, who died in office. 

During that 2014 campaign, Mr. Bell told InsiderNJ that he debated Bradley 21 times in their 1978 showdown, and lamented having only seeing Booker twice on the trail, including at a scheduled debate.

“The cultural change on the left essentially means they don’t do debating anymore,” the GOP nominee said. “They don’t feel obligated to rebut anyone who disagrees with them. Their assumption is they are right and anyone who disagrees is an absurd person who doesn’t deserve a debate.”

A Vietnam veteran and always a gentleman in his personal demeanor, Washington, D.C. native Mr. Bell wrote two books on politics, Populism and Elitism: Politics in the Age of Equality, published in 1992, and The Case for Polarized Politics: Why America Needs Social Conservatism, published in 2012. 

Booker invoked those texts on the 214 campaign trail, observing ironically that Mr. Bell “literally wrote the book making the case for polarized politics.”

In a 2012 Wall Street Journal article, James Taranto wrote:

“Mr. Bell, 68, is an unlikely tribune for social conservatism. His main interest has always been economics. He was “an early supply-sider” who worked on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns of 1976 and 1980 and Jack Kemp’s in 1988. In 1978 he ran an anti-tax campaign for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey, defeating Republican incumbent Clifford Case in the primary but losing to Democrat Bill Bradley.” 

InsiderNJ encountered Mr. Bell on the campaign trail in Hudson County, where he strove to connect with Hispanic voters.

To see a William Kristol interview with Mr. Bell, please take the time to watch this video: