Ciattarelli gets Essex GOP backing

Essex County Republicans have endorsed former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville) for governor after a vote of the party’s executive committee tonight gave him a 15-2 victory over State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield).

“We would like to thank all of the gubernatorial candidates who participated in our meet the candidates event last month as well as those who appeared before individual municipal committees to share their vision for our state,” said Assemblyman Al Barlas (R-Cedar Grove), the GOP county chairman.  “The only way to ensure affordability in our state, sanity in our government, safe communities, and a high-quality education for our children is by electing a Republican governor in November

Maritza Mathews, who ran against Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark) in the 29th district two years ago, will run for county clerk against incumbent Christopher Durkin.

Democrats have held the county clerk’s post since Nicholas V. Caputo rode the coattails of John F. Kennedy’s 50,030-vote margin in Essex County in 1960.  He defeated Abbie W. Magee by about 47,000 votes.

The incumbent county clerk, Republican Anthony Giuliano, decided to switch jobs with Magee, the Register of Deeds and Mortgages.  That happened after a split between two Newark North Ward Republicans, Giuliano and former Assemblyman Dominic Cundari (R-Newark) after both wanted to run for county clerk.  Instead, Republican County Chairman Robert W. Kean decided to give it to neither; Cundari instead ran for freeholder.

Giuliano lost to former Assemblywoman Madaline Williams (D-East Orange), the first Black woman to serve in the New Jersey legislature, by roughly 22,000 votes.  In that election, Democrat Weldon Sheets was re-elected as the Essex County Supervisor, defeating Republican Bayard Faulkner, the father of the Faulkner Act and a former Montclair mayor in the 1940s and 1950s and Essex County Freeholder in the 1950s.

Two Republican incumbents survived the Kennedy wave: Sheriff Neil Duffy and Surrogate David Wiener were re-elected.

(Sheets sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1961, but lost the primary to former Superior Court Judge Richard J. Hughes, 84%-8%; he finished third in Essex with just 5.7%.  Despite the magnitude of his loss, Essex Democrats backed him for re-election in 1963, and he won the general election by less than 2,000 votes against former Livingston Mayor Arthur Skeels.  In a 1966 sweep by Essex Republicans, South Orange Village Trustee Walter Blasi ousted Sheets.  Sheets had been elected supervisor in 1954, the first Democrat to win the post in 40 years.)

Nixon carried 17 of the 22 Essex municipalities, including Bloomfield, East Orange, and Montclair, but Kennedy carried Newark by about 59,000 votes and scored sizeable wins in Irvington, Belleville, Orange, and West Orange.

Republicans also backed a full slate of legislative candidates in uphill races.

In the 27th district, Adam Kraemer will run for State Assembly along with Robert Iommazzo, a Republican county committeeman from Millburn.  Kraemer is making his sixteenth bid for public office; he’s lost races for county executive, state senator, county commissioner, county clerk, county register, and West Orange school board.  The incumbents are Assemblywomen Rosy Bagolie (D-Livingston) and Alixon Collazos-Gill (D-Montclair).

In other assembly races, the GOP picked Willie Jetti and Che Colter in the 28th, Noble Milton and Daniella Almeida in the 39th, and Demtrius Eley and Lorenzo Marchese, Jr. in the 34th.

Two incumbents, Christopher DePhillips (R-Wyckoff) and Barlas, will seek re-election to the Assembly in the 40th.