Two others join GOP U.S. Senate race (Updated)

Two minor candidates who made no apparent impression in previous bids for the U.S. Senate are seeking support for the Republican GOP nomination to take on Democratic incumbent Cory Booker.

Steve Boston, an entrepreneur and documentarian from Ocean City, ran for the Senate seat in 2024 when it was occupied by disgraced incumbent Bob Menendez.  He received zero votes at the county Republican conventions where he competed for endorsements and did not file nominating petitions to appear on the primary election ballot.

Natalie Rivera is making her third bid for the Senate.  She finished fourth in a field of five candidates in the 2020 Republican primary with 5.3% of the vote, and received roughly two-thirds of one percent of the vote as an independent in the 2018 U.S. Senate general election.

Both have filed letters of intent with some county GOP organization in bids to win the use of a county party slogan on the June primary ballot.  Boston dropped out of the Bergen GOP convention fight.

Rivera and Boston have never filed reports with the Federal Election Commission.

Former News 12 reporter Alex Zda and former Tabernacle Deputy Mayor Justin Michael Murphy are seeking the nomination.  Physician Robert Lebovics is mulling a Senate bid.

Marina Bakreska, a businesswoman and adjunct economics professor at William Paterson University, has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination for Congress in New Jersey’s 9th district.  She is a member of the Oakland Environmental Commission and is active in the Macedonian American community.

That leaves Clifton Councilwoman Rosie Pino and attorney Tiffany Glenn Burress in the GOP primary.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 5:40 PM with Bakreska’s withdrawal, and again at 6:17 PM with Boston withdrawal from Bergen GOP convention.