New Jersey: Local GOP Establishment Backs Anti-Trump Candidate for Congress

Last Updated on March 21, 2022

The GOP establishment in the 11th Congressional District of New Jersey is backing Tayfun Selen for Congress in this year’s midterm elections. Selen, a Turkish immigrant turned serial candidate, has previously bad-mouthed both President Trump and the American people to foreign media. Most recently, he won the Morris County GOP’s endorsement in a process marred by controversy and allegations of fraud.

America First conservatives have coalesced around outsider candidate and Iraq War veteran Toby Anderson, who they hope will win the nomination over Selen and, as they put it, stop the 11th District from sending another Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger to Washington. Whoever the GOP nominates will take on Democrat incumbent Mikie Sherrill this November. Sherrill first won election to Congress in 2018 as the 11th District was flipped from red to blue and has been a staunch supporter of the Pelosi legislative agenda ever since.

The 11th District race is predicted to be a toss-up this November. Like similar battleground districts, the GOP establishment hasn’t hesitated to publicly meddle in the nomination process, making clear that they support anti-Trump Republican Tayfun Selen.

Tayfun Selen narrowly won the endorsement of the Morris County Republicans earlier this month in a process that critics, including Anderson’s campaign, say was marred by impropriety and even potential fraud. In the 11th District, the endorsement of the Morris County Republicans, also called the local “party line,” is a prized nod of approval and local Republicans vote to decide who the New Jersey district will endorse for congress, in a process that is often compared to a miniature primary or convention.

The voting process that led to the Morris County Republicans endorsing Selen has kicked up such a controversy that a large swath of voters signed on to a letter demanding the party hold a new vote, pointing to rule violations and inconsistencies in the vote count that could indicate outright fraud. Votes were even counted in secret and the number of ballots doesn’t match the number of voters, but party bosses say that a new vote isn’t going to happen. Additionally, their endorsement of Selen and all of the benefits that go along with it, will stand.

The Morris County Republicans even circulated an email attacking Anderson and those who have questioned the vote, claiming that they’ve investigated themselves and found no evidence of their own wrongdoing. Despite their claims, the local party has failed to prove that the vote was fair or even legally conducted, leading to Anderson and a chorus of grassroots conservatives to call for this year’s endorsement to be thrown out altogether.

“The MCRC Executive Committee has handed Mikie Sherrill and her fellow leftists another political cudgel to hammer away at Tayfun Selen, winner of the troubled party line,” Toby Anderson said in a campaign press release. “Instead of rallying the party around an ‘elected candidate,’ they have created division and attempted to shout down anyone who dares question the vote or ask for election integrity.”

“In the interests of protecting whoever our GOP nominee is and to protect Republican efforts to take back Congress nationally, the Morris County Party line should be suspended for the 2022 election due to the cloud hanging over these votes,” Anderson’s release continued. “If not, then that miscalculation could permanently eliminate all support for the party line.”

As previously reported by National File, Tayfun Selen is a Turkish immigrant to the United States who has sought several political offices as a member of the GOP since gaining citizenship.

After becoming a town committeeman in New Jersey’s Chatham Township, Selen became the first Turkish-born Mayor in the United States when he allegedly made a deal with the committee’s Democrats to elect him, an event he has sought to bury in the annals of his own political history.

Selen now sits on the Morris County Commission and makes it very clear that he is no conservative. He’s even outright said “I do not consider myself a conservative Republican.”

Tayfun Selen has taken frequent opportunities to remind the press in both America and Turkey of that fact, once boasting to Turkish media that electing him was the equivalent of a “slap in the face” to President Trump and his supporters. Selen then reminded the Turkish media that when he joined the GOP, “Trump wasn’t President” and claimed that electing a Turkish-born candidate would send a “message” to the GOP and the American people.

Regardless of the Morris County Republican’s endorsement of Tayfun Selen, the GOP primary will be held on June 7th of this year. It is then that Anderson, and the America First conservatives standing behind him, hope to defeat Selen and win the New Jersey 11’s nomination to Congress.