Republicans are hammering a clandestine political committee created last month to push Republican voters away from GOP State Senate candidates in South Jersey and instead support independents.
The criticisms are leveled at a caliginous group formed on September 11 in Jamaica, Queens, Jersey Freedom. Mailers suggesting that Vince Polistina and Christopher Del Borrello are not conservative enough instead push voters to a Libertarian in District 2 and a chimeric conservative in District 4.
“This clear attempt to confuse voters while Vote-By-Mail ballots are in mailboxes and early voting is approaching is a desperate, last-ditch effort by Democrats to hang on to their power right as voters are poised to reject their record of overspending, shunning parents, and driving up energy costs,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco.
While the 4th district mail bombards Del Borrello, it remains unclear who is behind the blitzkriegs and whose funding source is. Another newly formed political committee, Brighter Future Forward, has clear ties to South Jersey Democrats; they are also ambushing Polistina, Del Borrello, and other Republicans in huge TV ad buys on Philadelphia network and cable stations.
“For years, we have heard Democrats express shock and outrage about election interference at every turn,” said GOP State Chairman Bob Hugin. “Now that it has come to our own backyard, their silence is deafening.”
While Brighter Future Forward savages Republicans, Jersey Freedom instead appears to target conservative Republicans with the offer of a better choice: Libertarian Shawn Peck against Polistina and the phantasmagoric candidacy of an elusive, self-proclaimed conservative named Giuseppe Costanzo, a restaurant account manager from Camden County who had allowed his voter registration to lapse only to rejoin the voter pool recently.
“Planting a fake candidate in the 4th District race to try and steal this election – and then funding that candidate with a shady PAC based in New York City – is the last, dying gasp of the corrupt South Jersey Democrat Machine,” said Del Borrello, a former Washington Township councilman who faces Costanzo and Democrat Paul Moriarty, a nine-term assemblyman seeking an open Democratic Senate seat.
Del Borrello called it an “11th-hour smear campaign.”
Still, there is no evidence that the new dark money Jersey Freedom group is connected to South Jersey Democrats. And any authentication of its backers may be too late: the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission won’t publish the pre-election campaign finance reports until November 2, when an unearthing of information would likely be too late to impact voters.
But the New Jersey Globe has obtained an email sent from Jersey Freedom on September 7 – four days before the group filed with the IRS – targeting another South Jersey Republican, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, on his opposition to offshore wind projects. The email included a link to a New Jersey Globe story, with a subject line asking, “Whose side is Van Drew really on?”
Assembly Minority Leader John DiMaio wants Democratic leaders to join Republicans in speaking against allegedly illusory groups like Jersey Freedom.
“If Democrats like Governor Murphy, Senate President Scutari, and Assembly Speaker Coughlin are serious about protecting our elections, they will reject this out-of-state scheme designed to spread misinformation right as voters head to the polls,” DiMaio said.
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