Blazakis signs 2018 Sherrill, Kim campaign managers for NJ-7 House bid

Two campaign managers who flipped Republican House seats in New Jersey in 2018 are teaming up to help pick a Democratic opponent for freshman Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. in the 7th district.

Jason Blazakis, a former U.S. State Department official seeking the Democratic nomination to take on Kean, has signed Mollie Binotto and Zack Carroll as campaign consultants.

Binotto managed Mikie Sherrill’s bid to flip the 11th district in 2018 and was the campaign manager for Gov. Phil Murphy and Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver when they sought re-election in 2021.   A veteran of Emily’s List, she worked on campaigns for two Democratic U.S. Senators and managed Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s campaign in 2013.  Binotto is now a vice president of Sena Kozar Strategies, a Washington-based political consulting firm.

Carroll was the campaign manager for Andy Kim when he ousted two-term Rep. Tom MacArthur in the 3rd district congressional race in 2018.  He went on to manage two of the nation’s premier U.S. Senate races: Jaime Harrison against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina in 2020; and Val Demmings’ 2022 challenge to Marco Rubio in Florida.  Carroll runs his own Washington firm, Liftoff Campaigns.

Binotto’s partners, Dan Sena and Scott Kozar, will also be involved in the Blazakis campaign; Sena was the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2017 and 2018.  Josh Karp, who works with Carroll at Liftoff, will also be part of Blazakis’ House run.

After the 2018 campaign, the New Jersey Globe designed Binotto as the Operative of the Year, with Carroll as the runner-up.

Ed Peavy and Jonathan Levy of Mission Control will be handle Blazakis’ direct mail; Peavy worked for Sherrill and Levy for Rep. Josh Gottheimer; Levy is a former executive director of General Majority PAC.  Blazakis’ pollster is Brian Struker of Impact, which is Joe Biden’s polling firm.  Moneywheel’s Michael Sheridan will handle compliance issues.

Blazakis spent a decade as the director of Counterterrorism Finance at the U.S. Department of State and became a professor at Middlebury College’s Institute of International Studies, where he runs the Center of Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism.  He also operates a geopolitical risk consultancy group and is a senior advisor at The Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm.

He was among a group of Americans sanctioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin early this year.

“I spent the last twenty years fighting terrorism, corruption, and the illegal drug trade overseas. Both home and abroad, I’ve seen the threats anti-democratic extremists pose to our democracy and am running for Congress to stop them,” he said in an announcement statement this morning.

A former legislative assistant to Rep. Jim Saxton (R-Mount Holly), Blazakis grew up in Harmony and now lives in Lambertville.

With his State Department credentials and Binotto and Carroll’s assistance, Blazakis hopes to replicate the successes of Sherrill and Kim, both political newcomers with national security backgrounds who came out of nowhere to win Republican House seats five years ago.

Sherrill was a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and former federal prosecutor who had served as a Russian policy officer in the office of the Navy’s European Commander.  Kim was a civilian policy advisor to two generals in Afghanistan and worked in Barack Obama’s White House as a national security advisor and head of the Iraq desk.

Blazakis is the third Democrat to enter the race to unseat Kean, a former minority leader of the New Jersey State Senate who unseated Rep. Tom Malinowski by three percentage points last year.   Sue Altman, the New Jersey Working Families state director, and Roselle Park Mayor Joseph Signorello are already in the race.