Smith, Jenkins Set To Face Off NJ's 4th Congressional District

NEW JERSEY, NJ — The 4th District race in New Jersey will pit Republican Chris Smith and Democrat Matthew Jenkins in the November election for the seat in the House of Representatives.

Smith defeated conservative podcaster Mike Crispi by more than 11,000 votes in the Republican primary on Tuesday, the first time in years that Smith has been challenged in a primary.

Smith was in Washington on Wednesday for a voting session in the House and distributed a statement in the evening, thanking voters.

"I am honored to once again receive the resounding support from Republican voters throughout
the 4th Congressional District," Smith said. "The extremely positive reception in both new and
old portions of the district is overwhelming and encouraging."

He also thanked both Republican officials and volunteers who helped his campaign, saying, "I am grateful for the support and hard work of the party leaders and rank-and-file Republican volunteers who manned the phones, campaigned door-to-door, and helped deliver our campaign literature to the voters. Our message was strong, honest, and centered on the issues voters care most about. It won the day."

"I take nothing for granted and will be running flat out for re-election in the fall," Smith said.

Crispi tweeted a statement thanking voters who supported him.

"I’m so grateful for the over 20,000 New Jersey patriots who voted for me! All of our volunteers, donors, and campaign staff. We started in January from scratch, started the 'America First Republicans' movement and came such a long way so quickly! This is just the start!" he said in the tweet, and followed that with: "And on a side note: END MAIL IN BALLOTS unless it’s for necessary reason. It’s absurd on so many levels."

In a video posted to his campaign page, Crispi railed about the vote-by-mail balloting. "We were in 60-40 hole," after those ballots were counted, he said, "We did much better on Election Day."

In Ocean and Monmouth counties, the vote-by-mail and early voting totals were posted not long after the polls closed; Smith received 8,671 votes from those categories, with 6,645 in Ocean and 2,026 in Monmouth County. Crispi received 4,102 in those categories, with 3,360 in Ocean and 742 in Monmouth. With the vote-by-mail and early voting totals removed from the tallies, Smith still won by a margin of nearly 7,000 votes, with 23,216 to 16,396 for Crispi.

Both Crispi, in a letter to potential Monmouth County Republican voters, and Smith encouraged voters receiving vote-by-mail ballots to send them in.

Jenkins, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, posted a brief statement on his campaign's Facebook page, saying, "To the voters of Monmouth and Ocean County, thank you from the bottom of my heart for entrusting me to beat Chris Smith. Let’s get to work!!! #nj04 #nj #NJPolitics #TermLimits #primaryelection #vote #defeatchrissmith"

He faces an uphill battle against Smith, who has easily defeated Democratic opponents in the past, because of his popularity among Republicans. Under the 2022 redistricting, Smith picked up much of Ocean County, strengthening the Republican base.

Jenkins, who lives in Colts Neck with his wife and two sons, received nearly 19,000 votes in his uncontested primary, including more than 12,000 in Ocean County, but he will have to convince many more to choose him over Smith.

The county has 447,702 registered voters, with more than 170,000 registered as Republicans and more than 99,000 registered as Democrats. But 178,700 of the county's voters are unaffiliated, though many have voted heavily for Republican candidates in the past. And it's unclear what Crispi's supporters might do with him no longer in the race.

Smith said he plans to fight "the horrific Biden social agenda that is causing skyrocketing inflation, undercutting parental influence in our schools, and implementing an open border policy that threatens our individual safety and national security.

"I look forward to continuing my work on the multiple legislative issues that have made a tremendous impact in the lives of the people of the fourth district and our state," Smith said.

Note: This article has been updated with comments from Chris Smith.