Dressler will seek 6th term as Bergen Surrogate

One of Bergen County’s most popular public officials will seek re-election in 2021, seeking to continue a political career that began when he was a student running for local office during the Watergate era.

Michael Dressler, 69, said today that he will run for a sixth five-year term as Surrogate.

“I have filed a letter of intent,” Dressler told the New Jersey Globe.

Dressler first ran for public office in 1974, as a 22-year-old junior at Fairleigh Dickinson University running for the Cresskill council.  He was the top vote-getter in that race.

The Watergate scandal moved strongly Republican towns like Cresskill into the Democratic column, with a sweep of seats in the 1973 and 1974 elections.

Dressler later served as Bergen County Counsel and was elected Cresskill mayor in in 1983, at age 31, unseating Republican incumbent Robert Muir by a 54%-46% margin.  He was re-elected in 1987 with 59% of the vote.   He didn’t run for a third term in 1991.

In 1996, Bergen County Surrogate Steven Rothman resigned to seek an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democrats picked Dressler as their candidate for Surrogate.  He defeated Republican Simone Mele by a 52%-48% margin even as two Republican freeholders, James Sheehan and Anthony Cassano, and GOP Sheriff Jack Terhune won re-election.

Since then, Dressler has been re-elected four times.

In 2016, he defeated Republican Robert Avery by 61,217 votes, 59%-41%.

Dressler has overcome tremendous adversity.

Just before his high school graduation, Dressler dove into water at the Jersey Shore to find that he had hit a sandbar just a couple of feet from the surface.  He was administered last rights but survived.  Paralyzed, he spent almost two years undergoing physical rehabilitation.

Republicans have not yet announced their candidate against Dressler.  The filing deadline is Monday.