Governor hopeful Mario Kranjac eligible for GOP primary ballot, secretary of state says

by Sophie Nieto-Munoz, New Jersey Monitor

Former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac will be on June’s GOP primary ballot despite legal claims by one of his rivals that Kranjac did not file enough signatures from eligible voters to stay in the race, Secretary of State Tahesha Way said Thursday.

Way, who is also lieutenant governor, agreed with an administrative law judge who said Wednesday that Kranjac collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Kranjac in a statement attacked the attempt to boot him from the race as equivalent to Democrats’ efforts to keep Donald Trump from running for reelection last year.

“I never thought ‘Republicans’ would try to use the same left-wing lawfare tactics popularized by Adam Schiff on me and my supporters in this gubernatorial primary,” Kranjac said in a statement.

Schiff is an anti-Trump U.S. senator from California.

Way had until noon Thursday to certify candidates for June’s primary

The effort to keep Kranjac out of June’s primary was launched by the campaign for Republican Bill Spadea, a former New Jersey 101.5 host who is also seeking to become our next governor. The primary is June 10 (six Democrats are vying for their party’s nomination).

Candidates for governor must submit petitions with signatures from 2,500 registered voters. Spadea’s team said Kranjac’s signatures included some from voters who are not Republicans and that some of the people who circulated the petitions from Kranjac’s campaign should have been registered as Republicans at the time (they were unaffiliated and later registered with the GOP).

During marathon sessions Monday and Tuesday before a judge, hundreds of Kranjac’s signatures were deemed ineligible. Way said after this process, about 2,600 valid signatures remained.

Spadea and Kranjac are both seeking the GOP nod for governor by labeling themselves as the most pro-Trump candidate. Kranjac often touts the Star-Ledger’s coverage of him as the “Trumpy mayor” of Englewood Cliffs, while Spadea long championed Trump’s policies while he hosted his morning radio show.

In his statement, Kranjac took direct aim at Spadea, calling his case “fake and fraudulent.”

“Other opponents should take notice: I’m in this race to win,” Kranjac said.

A spokesman for the Spadea campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Burlington County contractor Justin Barbera, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, and former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli round out the Republican field.

Twenty-one Assembly candidates also saw their petitions challenged. Of those, seven were removed from the ballot and one had their case remanded to the Office of Administrative Law. The remaining 13 were deemed eligible for the ballot.