Don’t blame Trump. Donald Trump wasn’t on the ballot.

That was the assessment Tuesday night of a Morris County Republican, granted the privilege to speak anonymously, regarding the defeat of Christine Serrano Glassner.

The source said he knows the media will blame Trump, who endorsed Serrano Glassner in early May, but that’s just the way they are.

The “real” reasons for Serrano Glassner’s defeat by Curtis Bashaw were pretty basic, according to a number of people at the GOP’s election night party in Parsippany.

Let’s start with “money, money, money.”

Bashaw spent much more; some loyal Republicans spoke of getting four mailings from him in the last few weeks.

Then there was this observation:

“What good is an endorsement by Trump if no one knows about it?”

That comment may seem strange. Trump’s endorsement at his Wildwood rally was big news. Well, sort of.

Like many things these days, it was big news among active Republicans.

That’s not a huge group.

This is not a partisan observation. Very active Democrats are more numerous in New Jersey than Republicans, but still, compared to the overall population, they’re a small group as well.

The fanfare within political circles, notwithstanding, many Republican voters may not have known who Trump endorsed. After all, only about

300,000 of the state’s estimated 1.5 million registered Republicans voted.

As for knowing about Trump’s endorsement, let’s remember that the state’s newspapers simply do not cover elections as closely as they once did.

Because of that – and other related reasons – they are not as well read. This is a problem that keeps growing.

Back to the Senate primary, Serrano Glassner, the mayor of Mendham Borough, was endorsed by the Morris County Republican Committee, and for what it was worth, won big in the county.

As county chair Laura Ali put it, “The line kicked ass.”

Indeed. But her win in Morris did not offset Bashaw’s strength elsewhere, especially in south Jersey.

Serrano Glassner was not at the Morris gathering, but Bob Hugin, the state chair, dropped in.

Hugin said he thinks primary voters opted for the GOP Senate candidate who has the best chance of winning this fall.

“It appears that it’s going to be Curtis,” Hugin said.

“I think that the Trump endorsement for Christine came a little bit late,” he added.

Hugin said he is now looking forward to a “nice three-way race.”

He means Bashaw, Andy Kim and Bob Menendez running as an independent.

Whatever votes Menendez gets likely would come from Kim’s total, a possibility that has Republicans dreaming about winning a Senate seat for the first time in more than 50 years.

The problem with this view is that Menendez, who may indeed be convicted of serious corruption crimes in a few weeks, is unlikely to get many votes. Let’s be real. The entire Democratic establishment has asked him to resign. How many voters are really going to be in his corner? The notion that he and Kim will “split”  the Democratic vote – an idea that suggests a rough equality – seems silly.

As for Serrano Glassner, as of mid-morning, she has made no comment on the election on her social media pages.