By Brenda Flanagan
Correspondent
Welcome to the ‘dog fight’ — at least that’s what some analysts are calling this first district battle. High taxes and jobs concern people here — and the area was hit hard when the casino industry crashed.
A Stockton poll found only three points separated the candidates in late October. Conventional wisdom favors the incumbents — and in this district it’s split. One incumbent is Democrat Bob Andrewzacjk who’s running with Bruce Land, a retired department of corrections officer who’s never held elective office.
The other incumbent is Republican Sam Fiocchi who’s running with two-time Cumberland County freeholder Jim Sauro.
The Democrats have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds, and got more than a million in PAC money on top of that. We spoke to both sides about that today:
“I look at it this way: They’re actually trying to buy the election. That’s my personal opinion. I believe they’re trying to buy the election and brainwash people. They already know that their two candidates don’t even come close to what we’re capable of doing. So, they’ve hidden them, won’t allow them to talk,” Sauro said.
When asked what he says when Republicans say Andrewzacjk is a bought candidate, he said, “By who? I’m running the campaign the way that we want to run it. As far as what the PACs do, like I said, it’s out of our control. Whatever information they put out, isn’t even necessarily information that we would put out, so it’s really out of our control.” When asked about the accusation of hiding their candidates, he said, “If you call our office, if you stop in front of any grocery store, we’re there. We’re there. We’re talking to the people every single day.”
The Democrats are also counting on a popular local politician. They’ve branded themselves the Van Drew team, Van Drew is a state senator, but he’s not on the ballot with Andrewzack and his running mate.
Republicans Fiocchi and his running mate meanwhile haven’t gotten much support from Gov. Christie. They told us they understand that he has a different itinerary. Interestingly, both Republicans tell me they would vote to override Gov. Christie’s veto of the gun control mental health expungement bill in the Assembly.
But, that’s getting ahead of ourselves. The turnout was steady, but very low, we’re hearing. With registered Republicans outnumbering Democrats by 6,000 — nobody’s calling these races yet.