Campaign Reports Detail Who Gave, How Cash Was Spent in Election

COURT HOUSE – It seemed like voters followed the money this year, in Cape May County and beyond. In elections for county positions and legislative seats, the winning candidates well outspent the opposition, according to campaign financing forms required under state law. 
County Races
Freeholders
At the county level, incumbent freeholders Will Morey and Jeffrey Pierson, both Republicans, raised $35,405 to fend off Democratic challengers Danielle Davies and Gregory Wall, in the process keeping the county governing body entirely Republican. 
Their challengers brought in about half that amount, reporting raising $16,837 for the campaign, according to finance reports filed with the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission.
Sheriff
Reports showed a similar disparity in the race to succeed Sheriff Gary Schaffer, who decided not to seek another term. His endorsed replacement, Undersheriff Robert Nolan, took the squeaker of a race over Democratic challenger Richard Harron, but not without spending close to double what his opponent did.
Harron had originally sought the Republican nomination, but in an unusual move, changed parties to run as a Democrat when the Republican endorsement went to Nolan.
Nolan won his seat by a margin of 671 votes, according to an official tally posted on the Cape May County Clerk’s election website.
The final result was 14,856 to 14,185. The last of the required campaign finance reports, known as an R-1 report, showed Nolan raised $67,573 for the campaign, compared to Harron’s $37,116.
Legislature 1st District
But those numbers pale in comparison to the $487,678 spent by the Democratic legislative incumbents.
Sen. Jeff Van Drew, Assemblymen Bruce Land and Robert Andrzejczak all kept their seats and won in traditionally Republican Cape May County by a comfortable margin. Van Drew took the widest margin among them, drawing 19,748 Cape May County voters compared to 9,670 for Republican challenger Mary Gruccio. That margin could bode well for his attempt to succeed U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd), who flipped South Jersey’s 2nd Congressional district red more than two decades ago when the last veteran congressman, Democrat William “Bill” Hughes, decided against running for another term after 20 years.
While the Democratic campaign filed a joint finance form, Van Drew also filed an additional form in his own name, showing close to $25,000 spent on the 2017 election as well.
Gruccio brought in close to $66,000 for the race, according to her finance report, and spent almost all of that on the race. Her two running mates spent less.
Cumberland County Republican James Sauro spent just over $18,000 on the race, and fellow Assembly candidate Robert Campbell filed a form indicating that his fundraising would fall below the limit requiring a detailed form, which meant spending less than $5,100 on the election.
Governor
We’re still not at the big money.
Gov. Chris Christie could not legally seek another term. In his last run, in 2013, he raised a little over $5 million for that race. This year, the Republican candidate beat that number.
State forms showed Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno spent $5.7 million trying to get her boss’ place at Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion. But that’s still a fraction of the $14.7 million Democrat Phil Murphy spent on his successful campaign for governor.
That doesn’t count the millions spent by outside groups on the election as well.
While the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and Goldman Sachs executive took the vote by a considerable margin statewide, Guadagno won Cape May County, according to the county clerk’s figures, bringing in 16,118 to Murphy’s 13,566 countywide.
As lieutenant governor, Guadagno was a frequent visitor to the county.
In Perspective
This was not a particularly big year for election spending in Cape May County. Last year, Republicans Gerald Thornton and E. Marie Hayes raised more than $80,000, well in excess of Democrats David Kurkowski and John Amenhauser, who brought in $35,446 in that presidential election year.
For the Morey-Pierson campaign funding, many of the sources will seem familiar to those who follow local politics.
In the first report filed with ELEC, the candidates report $9,500 in contributions, including $2,000 from Cape May insurance executive Charles Pessagno, $1,000 from real estate developer Curtis Bashaw, $500 from Patrick Rosenello of North Wildwood, $1,000 from Maser Consulting of Red Bank, and $5,000 from Churchill Consulting of Berlin.
The largest single contribution to the Republican candidates in that report was $5,200 from the engineering firm Remington, Vernick and Walberg of Pleasantville, a firm with several municipal contracts in the county.
New Jersey’s pay-to-play rules limit the eligibility for public contracts for firms contributing to political campaigns. Before those rules, the typical campaign finance report read like a list of public contracts, and there was a clear expectation that those who benefited from public spending would help keep politicians in office.
Most of the money went directly to advertising.
The Republican freeholder candidates wrote a check for more than $10,000 to Whitewave Communications in Philadelphia for television advertising at the beginning of the campaign. Late campaign reports show thousands spent on radio, print and direct mail advertising.
On the Democratic side, finance reports show the campaign accepted $1,500 from the Harron campaign Sept. 13 and received support from Jeffrey Sutherland, who was the county Democratic leader at the time.
He wrote two checks, totaling a little over $860, according to a report filed during the campaign. Other contributors included $1,000 from a Cherry Hill group known as Maria’s Women United, which supports Democratic women in South Jersey, along with several contributions from individuals.
The campaign also reported an in-kind contribution worth $2,500 from photographer David Todd McCarthy for the design and distribution of a campaign ad.
The report shows spending on print and direct mail ads, including a $1,462 payment to the Herald Newspaper Oct. 25 for a campaign advertisement.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.