Zdan wins Burlington GOP endorsement in bid to challenge Booker

Burlington County Republicans voted to endorse former News 12 reporter Alex Zdan to take on Cory Booker for U.S. Senate.

Zdan defeated State Trooper Richard Tabor, 40-21, at their convention this morning.  A favorite son, former Tabernacle Deputy Mayor Justin Michael Murphy, finished third with 17 votes; a fourth candidate, Natalie Rivera, was a no-show and received zero votes.

In the race to pick a Republican opponent to run against freshman Rep. Herb Conaway, Jr. (D-Delran), Burlington Republicans endorsed Jason Cullen, a sales executive from Manalapan.

Cullen won the convention 45-25 against attorney Michael McGuire, a Marine Corps veteran and former New York Police Department officer.  A third candidate, Justin Barbera, received just 5 votes.

For county offices, Burlington Republicans are backing Michael Boyd for surrogate and Joe Avegg and James Melton for county commissioner.

This is Zdan’s second win after winning the support of Passaic County Republicans.   Tabor, a U.S. Army combat veteran who served in Iraq, has received endorsements in  Atlantic, Union, Hudson, and Hunterdon counties.

Robert Lebovics, an Englewood physician, said earlier this month that he is likely to run and has filed a letter of intent to participate in the Somerset County GOP convention.

Less clear is the Senate candidacy of Steve Boston, an entrepreneur from Ocean City.  Boston ran for Senate two years ago but never filed his nominating petitions.  He filed a letter of intent to compete for party support in Bergen County in January, but later withdrew it.

Comedian Vinnie Brand, who owns a New Brunswick comedy club, said he was considering a challenge to Booker, but has taken no apparent steps to run.

Cullen hasn’t held elected office before, but this is far from his first campaign. In 2022, he was a Libertarian candidate against Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) in the 4th congressional district, earning 0.7% of the vote. (Manalapan used to be in the 4th district, but was shifted into the 3rd prior to the 2022 election cycle.)

And back when he still lived in Riverdale in Morris County, Cullen ran as an independent in the 2009 gubernatorial election, receiving 0.1% of the vote. The next year, he challenged three Republican incumbents for a seat on the Morris County Board of Freeholders, but lost in the primary.

Barbera, a contractor, received 1.4% of the vote in his 2025 bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.  In the final days of the campaign, he was arrested for failing to pay child support.