BOGOTA — Steve Lonegan was 35 points down to Newark Mayor Cory Booker a few weeks ago, but having a good time.

His campaign for the U.S. Senate seemed a desultory sort of affair, not far removed from the kind he ran when he would go house to house, knocking on doors seeking votes to become mayor of Bogota, the blue-collar Bergen County town he still called home, and where he once proposed banning Spanish-language billboards.

Surrounded by a small, young staff of true believers with a devotion toward their candidate bordering on religious zeal (many living at his house, which has become the de facto campaign headquarters), the die-hard conservative was raising money at gun ranges. He does a lot of gun ranges.

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