Rep. Jim Courter won an eight-way fight Tuesday for the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey, setting up a November general election battle with another congressman for the office being vacated by popular Republican Thomas Kean.
With 90 percent of the state's precincts counted, Courter was leading a pack of the four major GOP candidates with about 28 percent of the vote to 22 percent for former Attorney General Cary Edwards and 21 percent for Assembly Speaker Chuck Hardwick."Today, Republican voters in this great state have endorsed our new solutions for New Jersey's future," Courter told supporters in Parsippany, N.J., in his victory speech.
He said his campaign will stand for "a future that will have lower insurance rates to drive cars, clean air and water, lower property taxes, safer neighborhoods without drugs and crime (and) a better quality of life for each and every one of us."
Rep. James Florio ran away with the Democratic primary, carrying almost 70 percent of the vote against two opponents and winning his second gubernatorial nomination.
The southern New Jersey Democratic congressman lost to Kean in 1981 in the closest gubernatorial election in New Jersey history.