Cumberland Democrats pick new county chairman

Kevin P. McCann, a former prosecutor and New Jersey Bar Association president, is the new Cumberland County Democratic Chairman.

He succeeds Nancy Sungenis, who did not seek re-election after 65 years in Democratic politics.

McCann is taking over at a critical point for Cumberland County Democrats, who lost control of the Board of County Commissioners in 2022.  Republicans now have a 4-3 majority in a county that has become dominant since Michael Testa, Jr. (R-Vineland),  the GOP county chairman, was elected ousted a Democratic incumbent to win a State Senate seat in 2019.

All three Democratic seats are up this year, and two incumbents, Carol Musso and Donna Pearson, have opted not to seek re-election.  The Democratic sheriff is seeking another term; there is an open seat race for surrogate, where Democrat Douglas Rainer is retiring.

Rick Dawson was re-elected vice chairman.

The 75-year-old McCann served as an assistant prosecutor in Cumberland County from 1976 to 1981, as Bridgeton city prosecutor from 1977 to 1979, and as the assistant Cumberland tax administrator since 1980.  He led the state bar association from 2012 to 2013.

The lone incumbent county commissioner running this fall is John Capizola, Jr., who was picked by Democrats earlier this year after George Castellini resigned.  He’s running with La Rea Smith, who runs social services for the United Methodist Communities in Ocean City, and Millville dentist Joeigh Perella.

Republicans are running former Freeholder James Sauro, banker Sandra Taylor, and Hopewell school board member Arthur Marchand, Jr. as their candidates for county commissioner.   Sauro won a freeholder seat in 2014 but gave it up after three years to make an unsuccessful bid for the State Assembly in 2017.  Taylor lost a race for freeholder in 2011, trailing Musso by 1,646 votes.  Marchand’s father was a popular freeholder and surrogate who lost re-election in 2008 when Barack Obama carried Cumberland with 60% of the vote.

Five-term Sheriff Robert Austino will face a rematch with Republican Michael Donato, a retired Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office detective who lost by seven points in 2020.

In the race for surrogate, Democrats have pinned their hopes on Nick Acevedo, an attorney who headed the state Commerce Department’s Policy and Small Business office under Gov. James E. McGreevey.  He faces Republican  Rudolph “Skip” Luisi, a Vineland mortician who served as president of the Vineland Jaycees and founded the Italian American Benevolent Association and the North Italy Beneficial Association.