NORTH JERSEY-Former Chris Christie ally David Wildstein today reported that former Brooklyn Democrat activist Stuart Meissner has jumped ship and is now considering running for U.S. Senate as a Republican in 2020.
Meissner’s biggest obstacle would be South Jersey Conservative Republican Hirsh Singh. Singh has been working the campaign trail now for several months, networking with conservative Republican organizations, traditional Republican clubs, party leaders and community leaders.
According to Wildstein, Meissner became a Republican in 2016 when he donated $16 to the campaign for President Donald J. Trump.
“Back in the early 1980s, Meissner was an active Democrat. He served as president of the 39th Assembly District’s Thomas Jefferson Young Democrats Club. Three years later, he became the chairman of the Kings County Young Democrats,” Wildstein wrote. “As a young Democrat, Meissner criticized the Reagan administration for “the shedding of American blood for the sake of (U.S. Secretary of Defense Casper) Weinberger’s policies” after Marines were killed in Beirut in 1983.”
Meissner, seen by many as a Democrat spoiler in a Republican primary should he run, once boasted about his close friendship with New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, even contributing cash to De Blasio’s mayoral campaign election. He also donated $1,000 to the Presidential campaign of Al Gore.
Meissner joins a race led currently by Atlantic City engineer Hirsh Singh who has been a rising star in both establishment and non-establishment political circles, Natalie Rivera and Tricia Flanagan.
Both Rivera and Flanagan ran as third party spoilers in 2018 election for Robert Menendez, winning a combined 35,000 votes out of 3,000,000 votes cast.
Now, after challenging the Republican establishment and stealing votes away from U.S. Marine Corps officer Bob Hugin, both Flanagan and Rivera are seeking to get the longshot nod from the Republican party against Hirsh after getting a combined 1.1% of the total vote in 2018.
Meissner’s past connection to New York City Democrats, Al Gore, and Mayor De Blasio would severely limit his ability to rally the much needed Republican base in counties such as the red dominated southern counties plus Ocean County, Cape May and Sussex Counties.
This is not Meissner’s first bite at the Cory Booker apple, he too ran as an independent candidate of the “Alimony Reform Party” against Booker in 2013, receiving just 2,051 votes, or 0.2% of the total votes. That year, Booker defeated Republican Steve Lonegan.
