WRESTING THE PARTY FROM THE MACHINE

Is it starting in Camden? Upsets erupt across the county

Daniela Solano-Ward, the new mayor of Collingswood, speaking at a June 14 ‘No Kings’ rally in Collingswood sponsored by Cooper River Indivisible.

Something is happening in Camden County, home base for the political fiefdom of Democratic political boss George Norcross, and the powers that be are not happy.

Insurgents, many of them explicitly opposed to Camden’s long-entrenched political machine, ran and won across the county, in Cherry Hill, Collingswood, Merchantville, Lindenwold, and the city of Camden itself. As we’ll see below, they ran under the banner of groups such as South Jersey Progressive Democrats, Community First Real Democrats for Camden, and Lindenwold Democrats Working for You. They won seats on the county Democratic Committee, they won seats on city councils, and they won a mayoral slot.

And often they handily bested machine-backed candidates running under the slogan “Camden County Democratic Committee Inc.” Here at The New Jersey Democrat, we think that adding “Inc.” to the CCDC’s slogan shouts out, “We’re the Machine.”

The end of the ballot line, which gave county bosses the power to arrange the ballot to favor party-endorsed candidates, often incumbents, provided needed visibility to independents running for office. And perhaps the electorate is slowly opening its eyes to the impact of political corruption on their schools, local services and living costs. In any case, the Norcross political machine suffered some telling losses in the gubernatorial primary and down ballot town and city elections.

Most striking was the fact that gubernatorial candidate Steve Sweeney, Norcross’s friend since childhood and former president of the state Senate, did not win the machine’s home base, Camden County, despite being endorsed by the CCDC “Inc.” Sweeney lost to Rep. Mikie Sherrill by 642 votes. And Sean Spiller, president of the New Jersey Education Association, was only 251 votes behind Sweeney.

Sweeney also lost in two other South Jersey counties, Cumberland and Atlantic, where Norcross has exerted significant influence. In Cumberland County the winner was Spiller and in Atlantic County it was Sherrill.

“They’re just so out of touch with voters,” Kate Delaney, head of South Jersey Progressive Democrats told The New Jersey Democrat. “They’ve been in power for decades and I think they’ve gotten lazy, sloppy. I think they’ve circled the wagons so tightly that they’ve kind of lost the grip on what’s motivating the electorate.”

South Jersey Progressive Democrats delivered the machine another significant black eye in the June 10 election when their candidates won control of the county Democratic committee in two towns, most significantly in Cherry Hill, the county’s largest city.

In an unexpected upset, a slate of Norcross-allied candidates, under the name Camden County Democratic Committee Inc., lost to the South Jersey Progressive Democrats candidates. The machine ran 74 candidates, but as a result of political maneuvering, and despite a lawsuit from the challengers, voters could only choose between this grouping and a three-person slate of the SJPD. In the end, the vote wasn’t close: 5,547 for SJPD, 3,255 for CCDC Inc.

The win by the progressive slate means that there are still 71 slots to fill, and they believe their win means they get to do so. But the CCDC went to court Monday, arguing oddly that the progressives had to appoint the rest of the committee from the losing CCDC slate. (The court temporarily stayed the SJPD from meeting or choosing the rest of the slate until a court hearing July 11.)

Senator Andy Kim, whose challenge to the county line in 2024 ultimately led to it being overturned, celebrated the progressives’ win in Cherry Hill. Said Kim:

“I grew up in Cherry Hill and it’s heartening to see growing political participation that will give the people more choice in their democracy. I congratulate and wish the Camden County Progressive Democrats well as they take the helm of the Democratic committee in my old home town.”

The South Jersey Progressive Democrats also won the four Merchantville Democratic committee slots, which they first won in 2021 and which the machine did not bother challenging this time around.

The group also gained a spot in Collingswood that was won by Delaney. “I think people are increasingly aware of the impact of machine politics in our county and I think people are sick of it,” she told TNJD. “I think they’re ready for change.”

In nearby Lindenwold, the Norcross county machine suffered another blow. A slate of 12 independents, running for the county Democratic committee under the banner of Lindenwold Democrats Working for You, defeated a CCDC Inc. slate. The CCDC slate was aligned with the mayor, who has held his position since 2011. The winning independents will choose an additional four members to fill out the town’s 16 slots on the county committee.

In addition to the committee seats, Raymond Morrisey won re-election to the town’s council on the Lindenwold Democrats Working for You slate. Voters, Morrisey told TNJD, “are more conscious about political machines and in general dissatisfied with them, that they are not transparent.”

Taken altogether there is the possibility, pending the court decision on the Cherry Hill committee, of 95 independent voices on the county committee, out of 522 members. The county committee chooses candidates to back in elections, nominates replacements for political patronage positions, and because of a provision in the law overturning the county line, directly chooses county members of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee. “There will be enough of us now to yell out ‘No,’” when they present us things they’ve worked out behind closed doors, Delaney said.

In the City of Camden, software engineer Theo Spencer, a vocal opponent of the party machine, has run by himself three times for mayor. “This political machine has been hell on the city,” he told TNJD, and “if nothing else running for office gave me a platform to discuss it.”

But his run in this June’s primary was different. Spencer ran along with three candidates for city council and a slate of 29 people running for county committee, under the banner Community First Real Democrats for Camden. “Twelve years ago” – the first time he ran for office – “there was no infrastructure to challenge the machine,” he explained. “But a lot of people have gotten sick and tired” of machine politics. Many had their eyes opened when they were “taken advantage of by the machine or suddenly shut out when they disagreed with something.”

As a result, people that otherwise might not talk to one another started to coalesce around the common goal of defeating machine candidates and created Community First Real Democrats for Camden.

“We were able to do a lot of things that were difficult for me to do on my own,” said Spencer. The group mounted a door knocking campaign and ran phone banks. And they are setting up a sophisticated data operation.

In a stunning win, one of the group’s council candidates, Sheila Davis, beat out the machine candidates and came in first among six. The other two Community First candidates lost a slot on council by less than 250 votes.

Davis had been a machine-backed council member but lost its endorsement when she bucked it on several votes. The end of the ballot line meant the machine no longer had something to threaten to take away, so it gave her the freedom to run independently. “I’m elected by the people to ask questions,” Davis told TAPInto Camden before the election. “Now I get to speak my truth. I don’t have to worry about retaliation. It was more of a dictatorship than a democracy.”

Although Spencer and the at-large committee slate lost, they showed they could draw significant votes. Spencer garnered many hundreds more than he had done previously. The group is organizing for the November school board election.

In nearby Collingswood, where the town’s three-member commission decides which of them becomes mayor and deputy mayor, the May 13 election was a major upset. Two first time candidates, Daniela Solano-Ward, an economist and former commodities trader, and Amy Henderson Riley, a public health professor at Thomas Jefferson University, bested running mates of the longtime incumbent, James Maley, who has served as mayor since 1996. Maley did win his council seat but at their organization meeting, the new council chose Solano-Ward for mayor and Henderson Riley as deputy mayor.

Maley, who worked for several years at Philip Norcross’s law firm, Parker McKay, has been a longtime cog in the South Jersey Norcross political machine, orchestrating construction projects throughout the region.

The two first timers decided to run for office because they were tired of the lack of transparency by the existing council, and tired of being told not to ask so many questions. “In Collingswood everyone is used to the way they do things, the leadership has not changed in a long time, everyone’s on a wheel,” explained the new mayor, Solano-Ward. “We are interested in more transparency.”

The two said they want more people to feel they can participate in running the town, filling committee positions and other posts. “Making a bigger tent,” Henderson Riley called it. They have opened an office at Borough Hall and have regular office hours so people know when and how to reach them. Maley operated out of his law office.

The two attribute their win to getting out and speaking one-on-one with people, something voters told them they had not seen done in town before.

“Get ready, roll up your sleeves and meet the people,” Solano-Ward told TNJD. “We had a large group of the community willing to go door to door, 35 people, doing get out the vote. We had over 15 meet and greets. You have to be willing to meet people one on one.”

“I think when you run for office you have to be authentic,” explained Henderson Riley. “And if you’re thinking about running, now is the time. Be true to your values and only answer to yourself. This was a grass roots campaign and people said we had no experience. But we were authentic.”