1978 & 1980 NJ-4th Congressional Elections

The 1980 Congressional election in NJ's 4th Congressional district—a rematch from 1976 saw 27 year old second-time candidate Chris Smith unseat the ABSCAM-plagued frm. House Administration Committee Chairman Frank Thompson jr. by a staggering 16%.

Winning in a traditionally blue district, Smith's overperformance on Reagan—or rather, Thompson's underperformance from Carter—who won the district by less than his national margin, R+3% vs R+9.8% nationally, can be primarilly attributed to the ABSCAM Scandal.

Said scandal saw Thompson, and a few other congresspeople, such as Senator Harrison Williams (D-NJ), take bribes from the FBI agents in a sting operation where said FBI agents gave the bribes in the name of a fictitious Arabic Company in exchange for never-to-be-delivered favors from the congresspeople.

A well known champion of liberal causes, Thompson was subsequently forced to resign his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee, and despite maintaining his innocence, utilizing his union connections to get the vote out, as well as his 25 years of work in congress—he lost because of the ABSCAM scandal.

Smith, by Contrast, was/is a stalwart right-to-life conservative, who in addition to ABSCAM tied Thompson to inflation—calling him the "architect" of the nation's economic ills, 'feudalistic' taxation, attacked his union conections as special interests, and made a big issue of Thompson lying about seeking a delay in his ABSCAM trial

In the end, however, Smith won, all but reversing his 1978 result where all the aforementioned factors were the same—save for ABSCAM and Thompson being then chairman of the House Admin Committee—and where Thompson won a comanding 24.2% victory over the neophyte conservative.