HUD Secretary Booker

Cory Booker was in the running to be President Obama's HUD Secretary after the 2012 election, but his criticizing Obama's attacks on Bain Capital caused Obama to nix the idea. Ultimately he ended up winning the 2013 special election for a Senate seat in New Jersey.

What if Booker had ended up as HUD secretary? How would the NJ Senate race have gone?

Booker was seen as unstoppable, so good Republican candidates didn't run in the special election. A Moderate like Thomas Keane Jr (The Senate Minority Leader) or the incumbent Jeffrey Chiesa might have run. Frank Lonegan (the OTL candidate) was a Tea Party guy in a state like New Jersey, although whaty's more surprising is he only lost by 10 points to the dynamic Booker (Christie would win 60-40 that year). The Democrat probably would have been Congressman Rush Holt, NJ Speaker Sheila Oliver, or Congressman Frank Pallone.

Booker was interesting with his focus on urban renewal and has been considered fairly Kempian. He worked with Republican Senator Rand Paul on Economic Freedom Zones as a mean for promoting urban development.
 
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Shelving Booker in the relative obscurity of HUD would have meant that quite likely New Jersey would have had a Republican senator for the first time in about 40 years. Further, it would mean that there would be a senator from New Jersey that actually (a) realizes and (b) acts like the state doesn't end at Mercer and Monmouth Counties. Neither of the incumbents (especially the ethically challenged Menendez) seem to know that southern New Jersey exists, apart from a dim awareness of Cherry Hill, Camden, and Atlantic City (OK, that's something of an exaggeration but it comes from having experienced the chronic, ongoing inattention of both incumbents first hand).
 
It was no secret that Booker wanted to be Governor more than anything but since Christie back then was stupidly popular, he instead decided to go for the Senate seat. If he’s in HUD until 2017, I think it’s almost certain he decides to run for Governor to replace Christie and would probably get the suppor the needs to take the nomination assuming his star power hadn’t been shattered by some scandal or whatnot.
 
It was no secret that Booker wanted to be Governor more than anything but since Christie back then was stupidly popular, he instead decided to go for the Senate seat. If he’s in HUD until 2017, I think it’s almost certain he decides to run for Governor to replace Christie and would probably get the suppor the needs to take the nomination assuming his star power hadn’t been shattered by some scandal or whatnot.
Quite possibly. The New Jersey electorate (and I say this as a resident and registered voter in NJ since 1980) has a penchant for electing bigger-government Democrats to the governor's office every other time, interspersed with Republicans less interested in spending: check the record if you care to. So you'd have Booker succeeding Christie: he might have started out popular but it wouldn't have taken long for that to decline as it did for McGreevy or Corzine, to name two recent examples. And still southern NJ would have continued to get short shrift from Trenton...
 
So Booker is the likely Governor come-2017 rather than Murphy.

How would Booker fare as HUD Secretary? I could see him pushing economic freedom zones like how he did with Paul and being fairly reformist.

Chiesa likely gets reelected here, at least in the 2013 special election (Christie would likely drag him across the finish line). What would his presence in the Senate mean? Could he get reelected in 2014?
 
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