With two critical municipal elections in the books for Jersey City and Hoboken, let’s take a look at who the biggest winners and losers were on Election Day.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Winners
Steven Fulop
The Jersey City mayor won an elusive third term by a comfortable margin and at worst will have a 6-3 council after next month’s runoff in Ward C. A statewide run again appears plausible, if not likely.
Team Bhalla
Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla and his council-at-large slate pulled off a clean sweep, the best possible outcome after the Mile Square City’s chief elected executive ran unopposed. The biggest question now is whether or not he’ll seek higher office in the foreseeable future.
Mike Russo
Hear me out: Hoboken’s 3rd Ward councilman, who endorsed Team Bhalla, is now the swing vote on a council otherwise split 4-4. That means all major votes will go through him, so don’t be shocked if he’s the council president in 2022.
James Solomon
The downtown councilman hit it out of the park, defeating Chief Municipal Prosecutor Jake Hudnut, endorsed by Fulop, by a roughly 2-1 margin slightly greater than the one the mayor defeated Lewis Spears by. An early contender for the 2025 mayoral contest.
Frank Gilmore
The upstart Ward F challenger defeated Councilman Jermaine Robinson by a stunning 33 points, a difficult feat to accomplish in general, but especially in a three-way contest. The next four years should be educational for the city’s south side.
Amy DeGise
The chair of the Hudson County Democratic Organization won a council-at-large seat easily running on Fulop’s ticket, putting her in a prime position to set up a future mayoral run if she’s so inclined.
Honorable mentions for Ward B Councilwoman Mira Prinz-Arey and competitive challenger Joel Brooks, as well as Ward C challenger Kevin Bing for forcing a runoff with Councilman Rich Boggiano.
Losers
Bhalla opposition
Being unable to maintain a clear cut council majority is a tough outcome after already failing to come up with anyone to run against the Hoboken mayor.
Jake Hudnut
Losing decisively in consecutive Ward E council races makes any future political plans exceedingly difficult.
Jermaine Robinson
The outgoing Ward F councilman just never seemed to find his rhythm this time around as Gilmore surged down the stretch.
Chris Gadsden
Like Hudnut, the Lincoln High School principal and former Jersey City Ward B councilman has now dropped two elections in a row after winning a special election in 2016.
Rolando Lavarro
The veteran Jersey City councilman-at-large jumped into the race in the 11th hour and was just never able to get any sizable momentum going, coming in sixth place out of seven candidates.
HCDO
While they did considerably better than other Democratic parties across the state in getting vote for Gov. Phil Murphy (D), about 40 percent those votes came out of the 33rd Legislative District thanks to state Senator Brian Stack this time around and overall could be slightly worst than 2017 when the race was far less competitive.
Hmm…the “Bhalla opposition” got off rather easy on this one. I can think of at least two mean girls and an ex-blogger (“on hiatus”) who could very easily have be singled out by name as Hoboken’s big losers.
If you know, you know.
Here are the losers in no particular order of irrelevance and bitterness, well maybe with the exception of the first name:
Tiffanie Fisher
Jen Giattino
Mike DeFusco
Dave Mello
Peter Cunningham
The entire Bitterly Together slate
Not really even worth mentioning Roman by name but we’ll throw him a bone.
Jen and Tiff maybe learned they have even less political capital than they imagined. You’d be hardpressed to find a clunkier tag than Independently Together. So you can add less political savvy than they imagined too. Not that they would recognize it. Tiff in particular loves the sound of her own voice and probably thought the 2 word, 8 syllable handle was killer. Headache-inducing, at least, is 5 syllables.
As far as the wannabe mean girl ex-blogger, he had no capital to begin with. So he didn’t really have further to fall. Nothin’ from nothin’.
Do you think Cunningham cares if you call him a loser? He’s a highly successful SELF sufficient , PRIVATE SECTOR businessman and doesn’t need to suck up to the HCDO, Stack or and locals slimy politicians.
Mock him all you want as he sits in his beautiful home not caring adamn what you think of him on this blog.
Maybe you’re more inclined to support the other Peter, The Law School factory boy and convicted felon who was led out of town in handcuffs….
What a clever reply that would be if anyone mentioned Cunningham.
But that’s why you’re a wannabe mean girl and why you don’t have further to fall. Formerly dumb but useful, and now just plain dumb.
Can you read?
See yesterday 1:52 PM
“Here are the losers in no particular order of irrelevance and bitterness, well maybe with the exception of the first name:
Tiffanie Fisher
Jen Giattino
Mike DeFusco
Dave Mello
Peter Cunningham
The entire Bitterly Together slate
Not really even worth mentioning Roman by name but we’ll throw him a bone.
I see your problem, grandpa. You don’t know how to click on the comment you are replying to. You just click on one and start typing your favorite few words. That’s ok. The internet is hard huh? We could explain how to do it like everyone else does so you don’t get all angry and confused and yelling at the orderlies. But next time, just ask the nurse to click on the comment for you and you can just focus on typing terror flier, experimental vaccine, stasi, and your other 5 words. Have a good nap!
LOL…what does it matter if Peter “cares” or not? He backed the wrong horse in the race for all the wrong reasons, and showed the world that his endorsement carries no weight. How else would you describe that for the election, other than as a loser?
Also, pro tip: there’s (A LOT) more to life than being “a highly successful SELF sufficient , PRIVATE SECTOR businessman”. There’s a thing called integrity.
So you prefer Cammarano we get that
Who said anything about Cammarano? Why would anyone “prefer” him? What the hell is a “bribe eater”? WTF are you even talking about?
Independently Together’s 3:1 loss shows Fisher has no political legs, no politics capital, can’t run a campaign, voters resoundingly rejected her slate. She has no future in Hoboken politics. Same with Giattino.
Russo only voted for Bhalla because he and his family need to healthcare that the job affords. So he struck a deal with Bhalla that he would back him if Ravi didn’t run anyone against him in 2019. And indeed they had a non-aggression pact. Now we’re left with a Mayor who has already increased our taxes failed to deliver on most of his promises and uses COVID to promote his own political aspirations.
He will be found out.
This inside baseball talk is making my head spin. #BitterFisherBot
Wait didn’t the Hoboken tax rate go down last year ?
Didn’t the Hoboken tax rate remain pretty much same the year before ?
Yep.
Both sides of the City Council 50/50 split City Council will have work with Michael Russo if the want his vote.
Reality.
Not one “Denise Giamatto” in the state of New Jersey. A fake post by a bitter loser. Maybe you need to troll NJ cemeteries for your next fake name.
Beth Mason’s doppelganger
The only thing better than the election results is Tiff’s 30,000-word email today with a laundry list of coulda-shoulda-woulda excuses for why if the rules were actually a little different and the campaign went on a little longer and they had a little more money and get started a little earlier, the independent candidates would have definitely won decisively because voters actually prefer them and their positions way more than Team Bhalla!