Tuesday, May 9th was Election Day in North Bergen and West New York. Let’s take a look at the biggest winners and losers from those non-partisan municipal contests.
WINNERS
Albio Sires and Richard Turner
While the Weehawken mayor wasn’t on the ballot, this election was as much a referendum on him as it was for the former congressman.
Sires and his slate had a lead from the time vote-by-mail ballots were submitted and never appeared to be in any real danger of losing from there, based on vote tallies from the Hudson County Clerk’s Office, despite a relatively high 26 percent voter turnout.
Brian Stack
The state senator/Union City mayor didn’t appear on the ballot, either, but he was Sires’ earliest supporter (besides Turner) and brought his army of campaign volunteers to West New York routinely since January.
This was a big contributing factor to Sires’ victory being far more decisive (61-39) than many people expected.
Nick Sacco
A commissioner since 1985 and the mayor since 1991, Sacco ended his trilogy with Larry Wainstein with a 72-28, the largest margin of victory in their series.
At 76 years old, Sacco may be retiring from the state senate at the end of the year, but it doesn’t appear that he’ll be defeated for the mayor’s seat any time soon.
Hudson County Democratic Organization
The “machine” backed candidates won pretty easily, which is good news for the local Democratic party ahead of their June 6th primary with all 10 county seats on the line (seven of which are contested).
County executive candidate Craig Guy had also been an early and ardent supporter of Sires and Sacco, which can’t hurt his vote totals next year. The local GOP also had some level of success, with Marcos Arroyo winning a West New York commissioner seat.
Losers
Cosmo Cirillo
The West New York Public Affairs commissioner couldn’t make up an over 2-to-1 Sires lead created by VBMs and early voting, and while he was competitive at the polls on Tuesday, he still came up short there as well.
Cirillo, 36, also the Guttenberg business administrator, will certainly be politically active whether or not he decides to run again. This campaign was also absent of any of the hijinks often associated with West New York races, which may have also led to his defeat.
Joey Muniz
A longtime Saccolyte and friend of Cirillo, Muniz, who works at the Hudson County Schools of Technology and also serves at the North Hudson Community Action Corp. board president, is all but guaranteed to face repercussions for supporting Sires’ adversaries.
Muniz was already hated by Stack and Turner prior to this election cycle, but this end result certainly puts a giant bullseye on his back.
Wayne Zitt
As it stands today, the Guttenberg mayor will have a tough primary in 2025 for backing Cirillo’s “West New York Forward” slate and also taking aim at Turner about North Hudson Regional and Fire tax rates during the peak of this election cycle.
Zitt is well respected and has a solid base on his home turf, but his road to re-election just got a lot rockier due to his relationships with Cirillo and Muniz.
Larry Wainstein
Despite spending roughly three quarters of a million dollars of his own money, Wainstein had his worst showing to date against Sacco in three tries.
The voluminous mailers and robust amount of campaign workers ultimately did not make much of a difference at the polls.