MORRISTOWN, N.J. — The Morris County Republican Party’s civil war spills back into the open tonight as candidates for the 11th Congressional District and Morris County Freeholder clash at The Chandelier in Flanders at 7 p.m.
In the background is a fierce battle for county party chairman between Rob Zwigard, backed by the former chair John Sette, and Finance Chair Ron DeFilippis.
Earlier Thursday, DeFilippis kicked things off by announcing that the Morris GOP, which had $6,000 in the bank in August, has raised $113K since September.
“When I took over as Finance Chair in August of 2017, there was $6,000 in the MCRC Bank Account. At that time we put an aggressive fundraising campaign into motion, committing to fund the Morris County Freeholder Campaign and help several other contested municipal races,” DeFilippis said. “Unfortunately, since we inherited poorly negotiated contracts, we had a large overhead operational expenses at our headquarters location.”
“I’m happy to report that we raised $113,290 since September and are on the upswing to bringing Morris County back to its place as the #1 Republican County in NJ,” he added.
DeFilippis is pushing back against a story that went national: a Trump National fundraiser with a paid speaker — Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld — allegedly failed to make money.
The finance chair says that’s fake news. “All Fundraisers that we had have made significant profits,” he says.
Morris County is one of the state’s most populous counties and a long-time Republican stronghold, but Democrats have made inroads in recent cycles. The candidacy of NJ-11 presumptive Democrat nominee Mikie Sherrill presents the opposition with its best chance in years to break the GOP’s stranglehold on the county political environment.
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