Lawrence J. Donahue. Republicans heavily targeted this seat in this election cycle. A warning sign for Adler came in the New Jersey gubernatorial race in 2009, when Republican candidate Chris Christie carried Adler's district by 17 points over Democratic Governor Jon Corzine Governor Christie campaigned hard for Runyan, calling Adler a "career politician". Some Democratic operatives asserted that Adler campaign staffers and the Camden County Democratic Committee (CCDC) recruited Tea Party candidate Peter DeStefano in an attempt to split the conservative vote and benefit Adler. New Jersey Tea Party groups said they had never heard of DeStefano until he had a strong showing in a July poll released by the Adler campaign. On October 8, 2010, the Associated Press reported, based on the details of an earlier article at CourierPostOnline.com, that there was "mounting evidence" that the Democrats recruited DeStefano. The article noted that a Democratic Party employee ran DeStefano's website and that many of the signatures on DeStefano's nominating petitions belonged to Democrats – including a former Adler campaign staffer. Reportedly, Steve Ayscue, the paid head of operations for CCDC, and Geoff Mackler, Adler's campaign manager, presented a plan at CCDC Headquarters during a May 26 meeting of the South Jersey Young Democrats, and some of those present soon joined in circulating a petition to place Peter DeStefano on the ballot. Adler denied the allegations. DeStefano called the suggestion that he was a Democratic plant "a bunch of crap". In the end, DeStefano garnered only 1.5% of the vote. Presidential endorsements in 2004 and 2008 On October 7, 2003, the then-State Senator Adler (along with Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey's 8th congressional district) formally endorsed Massachusetts Senator John Kerry for President in 2004 and became the co-chairman of his campaign in the state. Shortly afterwards, on December 19, 2003, Governor Jim McGreevey and most of the rest of the New Jersey Democratic Party came out in support of former Governor of Vermont Howard Dean for President. Because of Adler's endorsement of Kerry, and Kerry's decisive win in the Democratic Primary, Adler was rumored to be the frontrunner for U.S. Attorney for New Jersey if Kerry were to win the 2004 presidential election (which he did not). Similar to in 2004, State Senator Adler was one of the first elected officials in New Jersey to go against the party establishment in his presidential endorsement during the 2008 election cycle.