Louis Manzo

Sandra Bolden Cunningham won a Special Election Convention tonight to replace Joseph Doria in State Senate.  Doria resigned to become Acting Commissioner of Community Affairs.

Cunningham will fill the remaining three months of Doria's term.

Supporters of Democratic Assembly candidate Nicholas Chiavaralotti like the numbers in Bayonne, which look significantly higher than what they see in Ward F. Chiavaralotti campaign staffers expect a turnout of over 5,000 in Bayonne, where Louis Manzo’s ticket must score a strong plurality to overcome the Hudson County Democratic Organization’s strength in Jersey City’s Ward F.

Bayonne Councilman Tony Chiappone’s campaign team at his Bayonne headquarters on Broadway Avenue confirm that about 1,500 voters in Bayonne and 1,185 in Jersey City’s Ward F had turned out to vote as of 1 p.m.

In their State Senate contest, Sandra Bolden Cunningham’s people and Assemblyman Louis Manzo’s forces see the race coming down to which side can amass more votes in their respective monster wards: Cunningham in the predominantly African-American Ward F and Manzo in the white blue collar burgh of Bayonne.

By 1 p.m., 1,165 voters had hit the polls in Ward F, and 1,500 voters had punched in in Bayonne, according to the Manzo people. Cunningham spokesman Dominic Santana disputed those numbers, and says more voters are showing up in Ward F, and fewer in Bayonne.

Shelia Newton-Moses campaigns at the Colonette Diner in Jersey City
It's a long life in public service versus a life of fiesty private enterprise in this district 31 undercard where veteran former Jersey City Mayor, State Senator and Council President L. Harvey Smith will fight today with businesswoman and private school educator Shelia Newton Moses for votes in Jersey City and Bayonne.

Both candidates expect to pull votes in Ward F, which is about 85 percent African-American. Wards A and B also contain a large percentage of the district’s African American voters, particularly A, where Smith is banking on his reputation with his base, and Newton-Moses hopes her community activism and vitality count for some votes.

William Ayala, former chief of staff to the late Mayor Glenn Cunningham and a former candidate for the Assembly, has endorsed Assemblyman Louis Manzo for state Senate in district 31, the opponent of the mayor's widow, Sandra Bolden Cunningham.

While their tickets wage war, Hudson County Clerk candidates Mary Jane Desmond and Barbara Netchert are unfailingly polite to each other.

“I ran into (Netchert). I went right up to her when she was coming up the steps and said ‘this may be awkward over the next couple months but I prefer that it not be,” said Acting County Clerk Mary Jane Desmond, a former Bayonne City Councilwoman and one time Republican . “I sat at her table for 20 minutes talking to her. This is not personal.”

With the exception of a courtroom squabble over signatures, the contest for state Senate in district 31 proved mild in May until both sides popped the manhole covers on JFK Boulevard and snorkeled straight to the lower depths of Hudson County for an all-out mud-fest.

Examine recent campaign flyers from both camps.

The Sandra Bolden Cunningham/Hudson County Democratic Organization glossies show pictures of former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann interposed with shots of state Senate candidate (and Assemblyman) Louis Manzo. A close-up of McCann in one of these mailings brings to mind all of the fearful malevolence of Peter Lorre in a low budget horror flick, while the pic of Manzo suggests a wannabe desperado spitting sand out of his face after getting bucked off his charge.

Republican Senate Primary - Distrtict 24

STEVE OROHO
Raised: $ 266,480
Spent: $ 62,812
Cash-on-Hand: $ 213,667

GUY GREGG
Raised: $ 218,336
Spent: $ 83,875
Cash-on-Hand: $ 134,661

Republican Assembly Primary - District 26

ALEX DECROCE
Raised: $ 363,922
Spent: $ 226,536
Cash-on-Hand: $ 137,386

LARRY CASHA
Raised: $ 250,798
Spent: $ 179,873
Cash-on-Hand: $ 70,925

JAY WEBBER
Raised: $ 93,422
Spent: $ 44,494
Cash-on-Hand: $ 48,927

Democratic Senate Primary - District 28

RONALD RICE
Raised: $ 273,252
Spent: $ 281,381
Cash-on-Hand: $ 32,830

BILAL BEASLEY
Raised: $ 99,400
Spent: $ 29,156
Cash-on-Hand: $ 67,243

Democratic Senate Primary - District 31

SANDRA CUNNINGHAM
Raised: $ 69,605
Spent: $ 47,797
Cash-on-Hand: $ 21,807

LOUIS MANZO
Not available

Democratic Senate Primary - District 33

BRIAN STACK
Raised: $ 81,426
Spent: $ 67,825
Cash-on-Hand: $ 13,600

SAL VEGA
Not available

Republican Senate Primary - District 40

KEVIN O'TOOLE
Raised: $ 185,463
Spent: $ 88,649
Cash-on-Hand: $ 96,713

TODD CALIGUIRE
Raised: $ 46,407
Spent: $ 14,255
Cash-on-Hand: $ 31,925

Source: New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission

In the sea of Hudson County politics, all of those beleaguered sailors set adrift out there in the face of June 5th, Election Day, depending on their loyalties either fear or embrace the perfect storm, envisioned by that upstart pirate skipper Brian P. Stack.

Stack, the mayor of Union City and an Assemblyman, jumped out in front of the Hudson County Democratic Organization when he announced his intentions of supplanting State Sen. Bernie Kenny, who later said formally he would retire.

Now Stack is favored to win the Democratic Primary in the 33rd District, which includes Union City, West New York, Weehawken, Hoboken, Guttenberg and part of Jersey City. He already has an ally in Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner. The candidate’s also pumped money into the municipal re-election bids of the young Turks in Hoboken, who are restlessly jockeying for position to succeed Mayor David Roberts.