Last November's election was a "kick in the teeth" for Republicans. So, how do you make things right?

That blunt question was posed last week to three of the four candidates vying to head the New Jersey Republican Committee.

Christine Hanlon, the Monmouth County Clerk, said the GOP needs to do a better job appealing to women. They vote in heavy numbers, but not necessarily for Republicans, she noted.

EDITOR'S NOTE (UPDATE): HANLON (pictured, above) ON MONDAY NIGHT WON THE CHAIRMANSHIP

Steve Lonegan, who gained fame two decades ago as mayor of Bogota in Bergen County, said Republicans need a real strategy and philosophy. And then, they must "stand up and fight."

Mike Currie, who runs Wake Up NJ, a social media site, said the party must resonate with voters and be more visible. He mentioned attending local school board and council meetings.

All this took place at a forum organized by America First Republicans of New Jersey, a MAGA group, a video of which was posted on Save Jersey, a conservative news site.

The election is Monday. Voting will be done by New Jersey's 42 state committee members. There are two - a man and a woman - from each county.
Notice we mentioned there are four candidates, but only three were at the forum.

Missing was Rosemary Becchi, who ran for Congress in 2020 against Mikie Sherrill in CD-11.

Becchi's absence did not sit well with Mike Crispi, the co-chair of the state's America First Republicans and the forum moderator.

Crispi said Becchi's no-show had to mean at least one of three things. She wants to evade answering questions, she thought the forum wasn't important, or that she cares about party bigshots and not the "grassroots."

Becchi was not enamored with Crispi's take. In a social media post, she said:

"Last night, while I am away with my family for the holidays, I heard Mike Crispi, a very angry and lonely man, was trashing me at his little event and handing out these flyers spewing lies all the meanwhile, earlier this week I was on NEWSMAX championing Donald J. Trump’s America First message.I won't even address the ludicrous lies on this sheet or the words coming out of little Mike’s mouth, but let me be clear: We are done with the Old Guard. I am focused on delivering for a much wounded NJ GOP, that Mike Crispi helped to destroy, flip flopping from primary campaign to primary campaign doing whatever was most advantageous for his own agenda. Bless his heart.
Onward! Happy New Year! To a 2026 of putting NJ First. Always."

Back to the forum. It was about the future of Republicans in New Jersey.

But one could not avoid a look back to last November.

Crispi said he's heard some say Jack Ciattarelli lost because he embraced Donald Trump and others say "Jack" lost because he was not pro-Trump enough.

Lonegan was in the latter camp, lamenting that Trump did not hold a rally for Ciattarelli.

But Janice Fields, a New Jersey representative on the National Republican Committee, said a Trump rally in NJ was never in the cards.

Things moved off the rails a bit when someone brought up fraud and Democrats cheating. While this is pro-forma these days at Republican gatherings, this election wasn't close. The spread was nearly 500,000.

Republicans in general, one would think, need to move past the idea that if they lose, the other side cheated. That's like a losing football coach always blaming the refs. After a while, it's just silly.
With two months hindsight, last fall's election is not that hard to figure out. Ciattarelli actually got about 150,000 more votes in 2025 than he did in 2021.

Republican turnout was pretty good. But so was the Dems' turnout. And with so many more registered Democrats in the state than Republicans, that was the difference. The Dems' registration advantage is now a bit more than 800,000.

Clearly, the central challenge for whoever ends up running the state Republican Party is to find a way to shrink that discrepancy.