Two candidates for Cumberland County Commissioner allied with the current party leadership won a four-way primary to take on a pair of Republican incumbents in the fall.
Former Sheriff Robert Austino (35%) and former Commissioner Johnny Capizola (29%) defeated candidates backed by a rival faction: LaRae Smith (20%), a Commercial Township school board member and Democratic municipal chair, and Joeigh Perella (16%), the Vineland Democratic Municipal vice chair.
The victors will face Republican incumbents Joseph Sileo and Antonio Romero.
Democratic County Chairman Kevin McCann is trying to fend off a renegade group led by Perella and Smith that held its own meeting in March and voted – they claimed to have a quorum – to remove McCann. McCann’s meeting ended without voting to award their organization line to anyone; that came before U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi ordered office block ballots in the Democratic primary.
Wins by Austino and Capizola help bolster McCann’s chairmanship, if he cares to keep it.
Austino is a former Vineland police lieutenant who served as Cumberland County sheriff for fifteen years before losing his seat last year to Republican Michael Donato by nearly ten percentage points.
Capizola is a Vineland teacher and coach who had served briefly as a county commissioner last year. He was named to fill a one-year vacancy after George Castellini resigned after announcing he wouldn’t seek a third term. He finished the 2023 county commissioner race 2,361 votes behind Republican Sandra Taylor.
A group of anti-McCann Democrats asked a judge to require the organization to turn over financial records and enjoin the county chairman from making any decisions. The judge, Samuel Ragonese, denied the injunction but rejected McCann’s bid to dismiss; the lawsuit continues.
Over the last two years, Cumberland County has flipped to the Republicans, who now hold all seven county commissioner seats and occupy the sheriff and surrogate posts.
The last-standing Democrat is County Clerk Celeste Riley, who faces a tough race for a third term. County Commissioner Victoria Lods is challenging Riley for county clerk; Lods ran against Riley in 2019 and lost 53%-47%. Republican Gloria Noto had served as county clerk for twenty years before Riley ousted her in 2014 by 557 votes, 51%-49%.
The Republican county chairman and architect of his party’s resurgence is State Sen. Michael Testa, Jr. (R-Vineland). If his two county commissioners are re-elected and if Lods defeats Riley, Testa would become one of seven GOP county chairs in the state with complete control over every county elected office.
A Republican presidential candidate has not carried Cumberland County since 1988, when George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis, 54%-45%. Hillary Clinton won the county by fourteen points in 2016 and Joe Biden carried the Delaware-adjacent county by six points in 2020.