End of offshore wind deal leaves questions in 11th District election
By Jaime Bedrin
Editor’s note: The following article is published as part of a collaborative news project covering the 2023 legislative elections. Funded by the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, the project includes New Jersey news organizations large and small and comprises articles on individual races and broader issues, as well as the NJ Voters Guide.
Dead whales. Wind turbines. Parental rights.
The race for Legislative District 11 was already shaping up to be impassioned and expensive even before Danish renewable energy company Orsted said it was abandoning plans to build New Jersey’s first wind farm off the state’s southern coastline. The news comes just months after lawmakers voted to give $1 billion in tax credits to Orsted and is considered a major blow to Gov. Phil Murphy’s clean energy goals.
The news wasn’t totally without warning. In August, although the company announced a project delay, Murphy remained upbeat. But in a statement this week, Orsted said it would not move forward with the two projects known as Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2. The company cited inflation, supply chain issues and rising interest rates as reasons for ditching the project.
There’s also been community pushback toward the wind turbines, especially in the 11th from Republicans who’ve tried to connect an increase in dead whales and dolphins along the shore to sonar mapping of the ocean. Scientists say the whale deaths are the result of climate change and ship strikes, not wind turbines.
First-time candidate Steve Dnistrian, a Republican, is seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Vin Gopal in the 11th Legislative District in Monmouth County. Gopal, the first South Asian-American to be elected to the Senate in New Jersey’s history, has represented the district since 2017. He’s also the only remaining Democrat representing the area. When his Democratic colleagues voted for the Orsted deal, Gopal said no.
Dinistrian — who resides in Colts Neck Township — has called for a moratorium on New Jersey’s offshore wind industry while also profiting from representing a company that wanted a piece of offshore wind business. Dinistrian says he’s not opposed to offshore wind energy, he just wants to slow things down.
Will the new developments related to offshore wind have an impact at the polls? It’s hard to say — especially with historically low voter turnout.
All 120 seats in the State Legislature are up for grabs this year and New Jersey’s 11th Legislative District changed slightly after redistricting. It includes 19 municipalities in Monmouth County. This has been a swing district in recent years. Voter registration leans Democratic: 34%, compared with 26% Republican.
Matthew Hale, an associate professor in political science and public affairs at Seton Hall University, has a slightly different take on the wind turbine issue. He says one of the reasons the shore is so paramount to New Jersey residents is that historically it’s been a place where middle-class residents could go to relax in the summer. Now there are mega mansions, and summer rentals have gotten very pricey. He says anything that threatens the shore for the middle class is something that people fight, especially in the 11th.
“The idea that all of a sudden my view is going to be disconnected because of these wind turbines, I don’t really care if I get cheaper energy,” Hale said. “It’s still my shore and you’re messing with it.”
New Jersey residents don’t like to be messed with period. Especially when it comes to their children. At stake on the parental rights front is whether New Jersey schools should have to tell parents when their gender non-conforming students ask for changes in their names and pronouns.
The issue is the subject of a court battle. In June, three Monmouth County school districts passed controversial parent notification policies. Then the state attorney general stepped in and sued the districts over their policies.
Republican challenger Dinistrian has been sympathetic to parents and says they should be involved in all matters involving their kids’ education. Gopal, the youngest member of the State Senate, says he doesn’t support the lawsuit. Nor does he want schools hiding information from parents, but he also says he doesn’t think this is actually happening and fears the situation is a “manufactured political message designed to confuse parents and hope that they come out and vote, and vote through fear.”
Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, says Gopal may be on to something.
“They are candidates for office, their job is to win the election,” Rasmussen said. “I’m not saying the parent groups aren’t real, I’m not saying that their concerns aren’t real at all. I’m not saying that one bit. But candidates hitching their wagons to it — they’re doing it to win an election.”
It’s unclear if that strategy will be enough to persuade constituents to actually vote.
Historically presidential elections have the highest turnout, Rasmussen said. Those elections are also the ones with the most casual voters — voters who are more likely to be susceptible to an emotional appeal like parental rights.
In 2021 Gopal won reelection with about 3,000 votes. However both his Assembly running mates lost to Republicans. This time, he’s facing a race in a redrawn district that includes 14,000 more registered Democrats. Gopal’s running mates Margie M. Donlon, a doctor and Ocean Township councilwoman, and Luanne M. Peterpaul, an attorney who lives in Long Branch, will try to unseat the Republican incumbents, Marilyn Piperno, a fitness instructor from Colts Neck, and Kim Eulner, a businesswoman and former Shrewsbury councilwoman.
Jaime Bedrin is a journalist with experience in radio, television and print. She has worked as an on-air reporter and host in public radio for the last seven years.
This story is part of the NJ Decides 2023 voting guide, a project of NJ Spotlight News supported in part by the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University and funded by the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium.
