The filing deadline for candidates to run at this year’s Bergen County Republican convention has passed, and the roster features some familiar names running for U.S. Senate, Congress, and countywide offices – including a few names that hadn’t previously come up as potential candidates.
For the U.S. Senate seat currently held by indicted Senator Bob Menendez, nine Republicans filed to run for the Bergen GOP line. The field includes the race’s two frontrunners, Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner and South Jersey developer Curtis Bashaw, as well as former News12 reporter Alex Zdan, who has not yet officially launched a campaign.
Also running for the party endorsement for Senate are former Tabernacle Committeeman Justin Murphy, former presidential candidate Albert Harshaw, 2021 Libertarian gubernatorial nominee Gregg Mele, software businessman Brian Jackson, and Steve Boston, a mystery candidate who has no online presence whatsoever.
Finally, there’s businessman Fred Schneiderman, who was last seen running an unsuccessful campaign for the state’s 5th congressional district in 2022. Schneiderman self-funded more than $150,000 in the race to take on Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) that year but abruptly dropped out before the primary; he promised at the time that he’d be back to run for office once again, and apparently he’s set his sights on the U.S. Senate.
Four Republicans filed to run against Gottheimer this year, among them two frequent candidates for Bergen County offices, Mary Jo-Ann Guinchard and Dierdre Paul. Both Guinchard and Paul lost elections last year, Guinchard for a county commissioner seat and Paul for a safely Democratic State Senate seat.
Guinchard and Paul will be joined by Paramus school board member George Song and Chandiha “Sandy” Gajapathy at the convention fight for the 5th district. The once-competitive district, though, is not seen as especially winnable for Republicans this year after the last round of redistricting made it more Democratic.
The other Bergen County congressional district, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson)’s 9th district, has two Republicans running for the Bergen GOP line: Billy Prempeh, the nominee against Pascrell in 2020 and 2022, and Hector Castillo, the nominee against Pascrell in 2016.
Three Democratic-held countywide offices – the sheriff’s office and two county commissioner seats – are also up this year, and it looks like there will be a contested convention vote for all of them.
Three Republicans are running for sheriff, including Saddle Brook Police Chief Robert Kugler, whose 2021 campaign for the same office was derailed by a state corruption indictment that was ultimately thrown out. He’ll face two opponents, former Lyndhurst school board member Christopher Musto and former county sheriff’s officer Michael Devine.
And five candidates are competing for the two county commissioner seats: 2022 county executive candidate Linda Barba; Thomas Toscano, the son of the late Hackensack GOP leader of the same name; Bergen County Young Republicans chairman Tim Walsh, and Michael Joseph and Dave Plotkin, two Gen Z Republicans who ran for local offices in 2023.
Finally, there are just two Republican presidential candidates who will officially be competing for the Bergen GOP endorsement, former President Donald Trump and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
These lists of candidates do not necessarily represent everyone who will be running in their respective races, but only those candidates listed here will be eligible for the party line in Bergen County, which makes up more than half of the GOP electorate in both the 5th and 9th districts and around 10% of the statewide total.
This story was updated at 5:34 p.m. with a correction: only two county commissioner seats are up this year, not three. It was updated again at 6:39 p.m. to reflect that the Thomas Toscano who is running for county commissioner is the son of the late Hackensack GOP chairman of the same name.