Bergen County Republican Chairman Jack Zisa has not yet announced if he will seek re-election, but one of his political allies is lining up support just in case it’s an open seat.
Former Hasbrouck Heights Mayor Jack DeLorenzo has been making calls to party leaders, saying he’s interested in running for county chairman if Zisa does not.
Barry Wilkes, a Glen Rock businessman who ran for State Assembly last year, is also mulling a bid for county chairman in what could be a bid to reshape a county organization that hasn’t won since 2013. The 38th district was targeted by the state GOP, but Wilkes found local party support lacking.
Zisa told the New Jersey Globe that he will make a final decision this weekend after speaking with family and friends.
The GOP nominating committee is expected to meet on April 10 to consider candidates for county chair; DeLorenzo is expected to put his name in if Zisa is not a candidate for another term.
Zisa, a former Hackensack mayor, became county chairman six years ago after embattled former Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano dropped his bid for re-election.
The county chair race has prompted several contested county committee races throughout the county, and several incumbents who had opposed Zisa in the past have been removed from the organization line in the June 3 GOP primary.
Raymond Herr, a former Fairview councilman who now lives in Bogota, does not have party support for another term as a county committeeman. He had challenged Zisa for county chairman in 2022, but lost in a 2-1 landslide, 391-192.
Some Republican municipal chairs have complained that the decision to replace incumbents violated an agreement that allowed local municipal chairs to decide who ran on the line in their municipality.
In a March 26 email to municipal chairs, a Zisa aide appeared to commit the line to the chairs, although not definitively.
“As we have done in the past, Chairman Zisa considers the recommendations of the municipal chairs when awarding the official Bergen County Republican Organization column and slogan,” said Margaret Frontera, the Bergen GOP vice chair.
That left some incumbents in Fair Lawn, Mahwah, Wyckoff, and Paramus off the line.
Out of power for more than a decade, Bergen Republicans have struggled to find candidates in recent years. In 2022, they ran Todd Caliguire, a perennial candidate who hasn’t won an election since the 1990s, for county executive. Last year, an Assembly candidate in the 36th district had a history of legal problems, including charges that he smeared feces on the doors of a nursery school; he said he was angry that Obama had been elected president.