The US Senate race is down to four candidates after multiple sources reported that Stuart Meissner has dropped out of the race because he says his “narrow path to victory in the Republican primary by seeking the party lines in each of the counties does not afford us a chance to success in such efforts based on recent events.”

I’m assuming “recent events” are Rik Mehta being 7 – 0 in securing county lines.

Meissner’s exit leaves frontrunner Rik Mehta, former gubernatorial and congressional candidate Hirsh Singh, former independent Senate candidate Natalie Rivera and the other former independent Senate candidate Tricia Flanagan still in the race.

Moving on to CD2, based on a report by New Jersey Globe it appears CD2 Republican congressional candidate Bob Patterson is still running, but not competing in the screening/convention process.

I’ve been on the road a lot lately and haven’t been able to pay attention to what was going on in the campaign world, but as usual the New Jersey Globe report was right. Based on the number of times it was forwarded to me, Patterson made it crystal clear he is not taking part in the process via a campaign email.

I get it, Patterson is angry and who knows, maybe it’s a good idea for him not to compete in the county conventions and focus on getting on the ballot and run his primary race, but maybe it’s a bad idea.

The reason I think it is possible that Patterson’s strategy of skipping conventions is a bad idea is that it really is difficult to rig a county convention.

In a previous blog post I used the 2008 Murray Sabrin example that even if you believe the deck is stacked against you that with hard work you can still win conventions. Don’t forget, more recently never-Trumper Bob Turkavage won the Cumberland County convention in 2018, I’m not suggesting there was a fix, just that he worked hard and pulled off a win, I think people are still trying to figure out how he did it.

I don’t know if Patterson’s strategy is a good one. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m not judging. Patterson did use the word “apparatchik” in his email, so I’ll give him bonus points for a large vocabulary.

We’re still a long way from June 2nd and a lot can happen between now and then. I’ll just sit back and watch.