Mario Kranjac, who just barely met gov petition threshold, has hundreds more signatures that could be approved

Former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac filed for governor yesterday with 2,535 signatures on his nominating petitions, just 35 more than the 2,500 required for ballot access – but he has hundreds more waiting in the wings that could still be approved, the New Jersey Globe has learned.

Three petition circulators for Kranjac’s campaign were not registered Republicans, which rendered the approximately 400 signatures they collectively gathered inadmissible. But if those circulators were to change their party registration to Republican within the next three days, then Kranjac would be able to cure that “defect” and make the signatures they collected usable again.

Even just one of the circulators switching to the GOP could provide Kranjac with a crucial cushion. It likely wouldn’t be hard for one of his opponents to invalidate 36 of the 2,535 signatures he’s currently got – it’s commonplace for nominating petitions to feature a number of invalid signatures simply due to human error – but if he added hundreds more, that task would get much harder.

Kranjac’s gubernatorial campaign faces another crucial test in the coming days: whether or not he’ll receive matching funds from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. ELEC’s deadline for candidates to raise (or self-fund) at least $580,000 passed yesterday; at stake is not only a huge amount of public financing that could be used to boost Kranjac’s campaign, but also a spot on the debate stage at the two GOP primary debates mandated by ELEC.

Kranjac entered the race much later than the main three Republicans running for governor – former Assemblyman and 2021 gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli, radio host Bill Spadea, and State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) – and has struggled to break into the top tier of candidates, though qualifying for public financing could turn that around.

He’s running as an avowed Trump supporter and America First candidate, which puts him most closely in contention with Spadea (and which incentivizes the Spadea campaign, more than any other campaign, to take a look at whether to challenge Kranjac’s petitions).