Louis Manzo

Runoffs in Hoboken, Hillside and Jersey City will dominate politics in New Jersey today. These races are technically non-partisan, although in some cases party organizations are playing an important role in these races.

Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer and Councilman Peter Cammarano meet in a runoff to become the 37th Mayor of Hoboken.  The two-term incumbent, David Roberts, did not seek re-election.

Zimmer was the top vote getter in the May municipal election four weeks ago, edging out Cammarano by 212 votes, 3,614-3,402.  Councilwoman Beth Mason, who finished third in a field of six candidates with 2,330 votes, has endorsed Zimmer.  The Hudson County Democratic establishment, and Senate President Richard Codey, has endorsed Cammarano, who is an attorney at the firm of Democratic power lawyer Angelo Genova.

Three Hoboken City Council seats will also be decided in today's runoff election.  Ravi Bhalla, Carl Marsh and Dave Mello, running with Zimmer, face Cammarano's running mates, Vinny Addeo, Angel Alicea, and Raul Morales.  Addeo and Morales originally ran with Mason.

In Hillside, Councilman Jerome Jewell and businessman Joseph Menza compete in a runoff for Mayor.  Last month, Jewell led Menza by 201 votes, 1,368-1,167 in a field of four candidates  Jewell has the strong backing of Hillside Democratic Municipal Chair Charlotte DeFilippo, who is the Union County Democratic Chair.  The Democratic Governors Association has put $10,400 into this campaign.  Three Councils seats are also up for grabs. Mayor Karen McCoy Oliver is not seeking re-election.

In Jersey City, where Mayor Jerramiah Healy won a landslide re-election last month, two incumbents who ran on the Healy slate will compete in a runoff election for City Council seats.  Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano faces Rolando Lavarro, and Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson is challenged by Ronnie-Calvin Clark.  Lavarro and Clark ran with mayoral candidate Louis Manzo.

Two Republican County Chairmen are fighting to keep their jobs tonight.  In Gloucester County, incumbent Loran Oglesby faces Bill Fey, and in Passaic County, Assemblyman Scott Rumana (R-Wayne) is seeking re-election against Carl Mazzie, a Totowa attorney allied with former GOP County Chairmen Peter Murphy and Michael Mecca.

Salem County Republican Chairman Paul Reed has decided not to run for another term.  Former Freeholder Michael Facemyer is running unopposed for the post

In addition to Jon Corzine and Christopher Christie, independent gubernatorial candidate Christopher Daggett will need to pick a running mate within the next four weeks.  If Daggett qualifies for matching funds - he told NJN's Michael Aron on Tuesday that he expects to do that within the next few weeks - his campaign will have at least $1.1 million to spend on the race.  And if the Legislature passes a bill (already through the Assembly) to mandate Lt. Governor debates, Daggett's running mate will be on TV with, for example, Barbara Buono and Diane Allen.  Daggett won't want a James Stockdale situation.

To demonstrate that his ticket is truly independent, Daggett, a former Republican who held top environmental posts under President Ronald Reagan and Gov. Thomas Kean, may be considering a Democrat.  The Inside Edge, not in consultation with the Daggett campaign, has put together a short list of ten potential Daggett LG candidates:

Click here to view the Winners & Losers Special Edition for the 2009 Jersey City mayoral race

If Jerramiah Healy tops the 50% mark today, he will become the first Mayor of Jersey City to win three elections without a runoff since the legendary Frank Hague.

Healy won a 2004 special election 28%-24% over Assemblyman Louis Manzo, with Acting Mayor L. Harvey Smith running a strong third with 22%.  When he ran for re-election in 2005, he won 75% of the vote against former City Councilwoman Melissa Holloway.

Runoffs have been common in Jersey City elections in recent years.  In 2001, former U.S. Marshal Glenn Cunningham led City Council President (now Hudson County Executive) Thomas DeGise 38%-24% in the May election, and won the runoff 53%-47%.  Bret Schundler elected in a nineteen-candidate 1992 special election, won re-election with 68% in 1993.  But in 1997, he fell two votes short of winning 50% and after a court battle, beat Healy 59%-41% in the runoff.

When Dr. Paul Jordan, a reformer who toppled the Jersey City Democratic machine when he won a 1971 special election for Mayor, ran for Governor six years later, City Clerk Thomas F.X. Smith beat Jordan's handpicked successor.  Smith won 50% against William Macchi, the Jersey City Director of Human Resources.  That effectively ended Jordan's gubernatorial campaign and caused the defeat of Jordan allies in the State Senate (Walter Sheil ousted two-term State Sen. James Dugan, the Democratic State Chairman) and Assembly in the primary election a few weeks later.  Smith served one-term and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1981.

Following the criminal conviction of Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann in 1992, nineteen candidates filed to run in a November non-partisan special election to fill the remaining nine months of his term.  Among the candidates were: Bret Schundler, a Republican who had run a strong race against State Sen. Edward O'Connor (D-Jersey City) the year before; Hudson County Freeholder Louis Manzo; and former Jersey City Democratic Chairman Allen Manzo.  Louis and Allen Manzo were brothers.

Allen Manzo was a McCann ally, and Louis Manzo was a political foe of the Mayor.

At first, the Manzo brothers argued about slogans.  Louis Manzo went on the ballot as "An Honest Difference," while Allen Manzo filed with "An Honest Change."  Louis Manzo lost a court challenge seeking to invalidate his brother's petitions, and then changed his slogan to "The Real Manzo."  Allen Manzo got the top ballot slot; Louis Manzo was somewhere in the middle.

The real turning point in the campaign came when their mother, Mary Manzo, endorsed Louis Manzo and taped a TV ad urging Jersey City voters to vote for "The Real Manzo."

Sources say that tracking polls taken by Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy's campaign show the incumbent around 53%, and around 55% with leaners.  His closest rival, former Assemblyman Louis Manzo is holding at around 15%, and Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith is running third.  Healy needs to win 50% of the vote tonight to avoid a runoff.

Jersey City residents will go to the polls tomorrow to either elect their next mayor or set the stage for a runoff next month.

Four candidates are taking on Mayor Jerramiah Healy in this city of 240,000, and the most well-funded among them, former Assemblyman Louis Manzo, has only one-tenth of the funds Healy does.   Also running are Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, good government activist Dan Levin and police detective Phil Webb.  

There are also 42 candidates for council on the ballot -- a relatively small number by historical Jersey City standards.   

Healy, who had raised $3.1 million as of the last report with the Election Law Enforcement Commission, has been considered the favorite throughout the race.  He's rolled our one big name state endorsement after another, and spent this morning campaigning at the Journal Square PATH station with Newark Mayor Cory Booker.  He's hitched his campaign to President Barack Obama, and by now most Jersey City residents with cable television have seen Obama's two-year-old remarks praising Healy, then an early endorser of his underdog candidacy.  

Conventional wisdom dictates that the best chance someone has to upset Healy is to force him into a runoff by keeping him from getting a majority of the vote.  But Manzo, making his fifth bid for mayor, sees an upset in the making, one so large that it will overshadow John Kenny's 1949 defeat of Frank Hague Eggers, which ended the influence of Jersey City's three-decade mayor and powerful political boss, Frank Hague.  

"Based on what we've seen in our polling in the last week, the undecideds stay high and the other guys in the race were not drawing a significant amount of votes," said Manzo,  who got the front-page endorsement of the Jersey Journal this weekend.   "If the undecideds break one way or the other, this could be a first ballot win for us."

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy has raised nearly $3.1 million for his re-election bid.

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy has raised 10 times more money than his closest opponent, according the latest filings with the State Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC).  

Healy’s campaign has raised a total of almost $3.1 million and has spent just shy of $2.3 million for his reelection in this city of 240,000, along with another $443,000 in donations to other campaigns and local non-profits.  Of the total raised, $620,000 was left over from Healy’s previous campaign, while $2.49 million was taken in during the current cycle.  

No report was available online for former Assemblyman Lou Manzo, but he said he raised about $300,000 as of the filing deadline, and has spent somewhere between $270,000 and $280,000.  Manzo said he was not daunted by the mayor’s huge fundraising advantage. 

The Jersey City mayoral campaign has spilled into a legislative race.

Former Assemblyman Louis Manzo, who is running for mayor in Jersey City's non-partisan election, has fielded two Assembly candidates to run in District 31, which he used to represent.

Ronnie Meadows, a former Hudson County freeholder candidate, and Monique Snow, a paralegal, are bracketed together with the same slogan Manzo is using for his mayoral campaign: "Change to Believe in."

Meadows and Snow are challenging Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) backed incumbent Anthony Chiappone and Jersey City police detective Charles Mainor, who replaces incumbent L. Harvey Smith on the ballot.  Smith is also running for mayor.

Charles Mainor, a 42-year-old Jersey City police detective, appears headed for the State Assembly.  He has emerged as the likely candidate of the Hudson County Democratic Organization in the 31st district, where Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith (D-Jersey City) is giving up his seat to run for Mayor.  He is expected to run with Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone (D-Bayonne), who has cut a deal with Democrats to keep his seat.  Mainor’s chief advocates were State Sen. Sandra Bolden Cunningham and longtime Democratic insider Joseph Cardwell, but Democrats say he has a solid relationship with the Mayor of Jersey City, Jerramiah Healy.  Sources say Mainor got the nod over Oren Dabney, who runs the Jersey City Incinerator Authority.