Manchester, the Ocean County municipality eternally identified as the site of the Hindenburg airship disaster, is the next test of George Gilmore’s return as the Ocean County Republican Chairman.
The township of about 45,000 people is solidly Republican, but local elections are non-partisan and the mayor, Robert A. Hudak, Jr., is one of the GOP officials who supported Sheriff Michael Mastronardy for county chairman last month against Gilmore.
Gilmore is backing Robert Arace, a 28-year-old marketing consultant and zoning board member, in a rematch of a November 2021 special election.
Except for small handful of county committee members, Manchester went all in for Gilmore, who defeated Mastronardy by just 13 votes in his bid to return to the county Republican post he’d held from 1996 to 2019. Gilmore now owes Manchester.
That puts the local GOP organization largely on Team Arace going into the fall election. The new Republican municipal chair is a key Gilmore ally, Roxanne Coburger, a former political director of the Republican State Committee and Arace’s campaign manager in 2021.
The Manchester race also pits Gilmore against freshman Assemblyman Brandon Umba (R-Medford), who is the Manchester Township Administrator and a veteran political operative. Jesse Estlow, a former executive director of the Burlington County Republican organization, is now Hudak’s top aide.
Mayor Kenneth Palmer resigned last year to become a Superior Court Judge and Hudak a councilman, emerged as the choice of his colleagues to serve as acting mayor.
Hudak, 45, a former aide to State Sen. Diane Allen (R-Edgewater Park), defeated Araceby fourteen percentage points, 57%-43%, and a plurality of 2,100 votes.
In the same race, Hudak’s running mate, Councilwoman Michele Zolezi, won by 1,305 votes, 54%-46%, against Joseph Hankins, a former fire chief and 25-year police officer who ran with Arace.
This year, Hudak is running with Councilwoman Joan Brush, who parlayed a career as a popular school bus driver and community leader into a political career when she won a 2017 special election to replace Brendan Weiner on the township council. Also on his ticket is Tim Poss, a planning board member and Pemberton police sergeant.
It’s not clear who is running with Arace, although Coburger has taken out a petition to run for council.
Craig Wallis, an 18-year councilman and retired Air Force sergeant who is up for re-election this year, backed Arace in 2021. So did Councilman James Vaccaro, Sr., who does not face voters again until 2024.
Two weeks ago, Gilmore lost his first race since return as county chairman.
He had backed Plumsted Committeeman and controversial pastor Dominick Cuozzo at a special election convention to fill the seat of Ronald Dancer (R-Plumsted), who died in July after nearly 20 years in the State Assembly. But county committee members in the sprawling Middlesex to Burlington district picked a different Ocean County candidate, Alex Sauickie, a Jackson councilman.
In his first test, Gilmore’s candidate lost by a massive 39-point margin.
If Gilmore wins Manchester, few will remember the 12th district Assembly race. But if Hudak and his team prevail, Gilmore potentially heads into 2023 as a man who was able to win back his old chairmanship, but without the ability to dictate who wins elections, a superpower he once wielded.
The filing deadline is September 6.
RELATED ARTICLES
-
July 11, 2022 -
April 13, 2019
-
April 23, 2019