Fazzone ends bid for governor

Former Burlington City Mayor James Fazzone did not collect enough signatures to get on the ballot for the Republican gubernatorial nomination and is expected to exit the race tomorrow.

Fazzone launched his candidacy in July but ran into trouble earlier this year when a new state law raised the number of signatures he needed to qualify from 1,000 to 2,500.  The filing deadline is 4 PM on March 24.

“We’re somewhere around 1,000,” Fazzone told the New Jersey Globe.  “We would have liked to have been in the primary, but we fell short.  We’re happy that we got some of our issues out there.”

A former superintendent of schools, he spent sixteen years on the school board, three as a councilman and eight as mayor.

Fazzone’s local wins were as a Democrat: Fazzone endorsed Gov. Chris Christie for re-election in 2013.  switched parties in 2015, but he received 32% in the GOP primary. Fazzone was the Republican candidate for State Senate in 2023, challenging Majority Whip Troy Singleton (D-Delran) in the 7th legislative district.  He received just 32% of the vote, with Singleton beating him in his hometown, Burlington City, with 73%.

He raised just $100 through the end of 2024 and was not on pace to qualify for matching funds under the state’s gubernatorial public financing program.

The track record for small-town local elected officials, past or former, is not good; indeed, it’s never happened.  (James E. McGreevey was the mayor of Woodbridge, one of the largest municipalities in the state, when he was elected governor in 2001; he was also a former state senator.)

Typically, those candidates wind up in single digits.

In 1977, Moorestown Mayor William Angus received 3.3% in the Republican primary.  Hamilton Mayor Jack Rafferty won 3.2% in a GOP primary with no line in 1981.   Morris Township Committeeman J. Patrick Gilligan took 1.4% in 1993, and Washington Township (Bergen) Councilman Robert Schroeder received 5.5% in 2005 – three points better than former Bergen County Freeholder Todd Caliguire. In 2017, Nutley Commissioner Steve Rogers received 5.9%, and former Franklin Mayor (and Somerset County Freeholder) Brian D. Levine received 3.3% in 2021.

On the Democratic side, former Glen Ridge Mayor Carl Bergmanson took 8.6% in his 2009 primary challenge to Gov. Jon Corzine.  Tenafly Councilman (now mayor) Mark Zinna won 1% in his 2017 gubernatorial run.