Dem New Jersey Senate president ousted by GOP trucker — who spent $153 on primary campaign

The New Jersey state Senate president was ousted by a political novice truck driver who spent $153 on his Republican primary and less than $10,000 overall — dealing another blow to Democrats who ignored voters, pushed progressive agendas and then underestimated surging GOP candidates.

Edward Durr knocked off Democratic state Sen. Steven Sweeney in a stunning upset that follows the trend in Virginia, where Terry McAuliffe lost to Glenn Youngkin — and in his own Garden State, where Gov. Phil Murphy barely eked out a win against Republican Jack Ciattarelli.

Durr, 58, a truck driver for Raymour & Flanigan furniture, said he realized he could run for political office after seeing former President Donald Trump, who had never been a politician, launch his long-shot campaign for the White House in 2016.

“I had the interest and my interest to get involved in politics from following Trump’s election in 2016,” Durr told The Post in an interview from his South Jersey home. 

“He didn’t need to be a lifetime politician to run. So that kind of steered me into looking into it, and then I got serious and ran in 2019,” for the state Assembly in an unsuccessful bid. He said the run “put a bug in me” and he eventually decided “no, I’m not quite done.”

So he said he started to explore his options last winter with Republican Party officials.

“All I wanted is to see change in New Jersey. And whatever I can do to help the party, whether it be somebody who volunteers as a campaign staffer, somebody who makes calls on the phone, if you have a position you want me to run for whatever,” Durr said, eventually deciding on an improbable run against against Sweeney, who has been the state Senate’s president since 2010. 

The Associated Press projected Durr as the winner Thursday morning, putting him more than 2,200 votes ahead of Sweeney with 100 percent of the precincts reporting.

Durr also clarified reports that he only spent $153 on his campaign against Sweeney. He said that’s how much it cost to win the primary, but he spent between $5,000 and $10,000 in the general election mainly on campaign items like signs and posters and he noted he once bought lunch for volunteers who knocked on doors for him. 

An Associated Press report Thursday said he spent $2,300, according to an Election Law Enforcement Commission document filed online.

“I had all local people, people who just wanted to see a change, who believed in what I was saying and believed that we could make a difference. They actually said, ‘We can make a difference if we knock on the doors’ and they helped. We knocked on about 20,000 doors,” Durr, a father of three, said. 

But Durr said the biggest contribution to his campaign and his name recognition came from Sweeney himself. 

Instead of ignoring the political novice, Durr said Sweeney launched a smear campaign against him through flyers, Facebook ads and political ads that ran on television in prime time.

” And it was all basically saying that I’m not for the people that I’m just money-grubber rather that I don’t care about anybody. I mean it was personal attacks. It was smear attacks,” Durr said. 

But the tactic backfired and resulted in making Durr more popular and increased his name recognition among New Jersey voters in his legislative district.

“One of the funny things was my son goes and tells me, he says ‘yeah, dad, they’re attacking you on Facebook, but the funny thing is every comment is in support of you and in opposition to him.

“All they did is make my name known,” Durr said. 

He said Sweeney hasn’t called him but any message from him could be lost in the hundreds of messages and voicemails he’s been receiving from around the country since the results were announced.

Sweeney’s campaign told The post Thursday they were still monitoring results and had yet to concede.

“While I am currently trailing in the race, we want to make sure every vote is counted. Our voters deserve that, and we will wait for the final results,” the candidate said in a statement. 

Durr said he became fed up after seeing politicians failing to take action during the coronavirus pandemic last year.

The pandemic was surging and “we had a legislature who sat on their hands and did absolutely nothing. This was back in January. We went through almost a whole year in shut down, seeing businesses mostly closed, people suffering. And I was like, this is ridiculous, they’re getting paid to do a job and they’re ignoring what their job and their function needs to be. They need to be challenging the governor on what’s going on,” he said. 

Durr said Sweeney and other legislators failed to represent the people of New Jersey who put them in office.

“They’re just going to sit there and let these things happen,” he said of the lawmakers. “And we’re not going to worry about it because the governor says it’s OK. Their job as a representative, as a part of the government structure in New Jersey, is to question everything. They are supposed to question every policy that’s put forth, every decision that is made they’re supposed to question and have an answer for the people because ultimately, like I said, they answer to the people,” Durr said.