Ocean County GOP boss George Gilmore is the biggest winner at last night’s convention

TOMS RIVER - George R. Gilmore has solidified his hold on power as Ocean County’s political boss after the annual county GOP convention on Thursday night, which saw the Toms River Regular Republican Club restored to its status as the party’s official municipal organization.

Gilmore’s handpicked candidates to run for the county Board of Commissioners — Manchester Mayor Robert Arace and Berkeley Board of Education President Jennifier Bacchione — also were endorsed to succeed incumbents Gary Quinn and Barbara Jo Crea.

Moreover, former President Donald Trump, who had pardoned Gilmore in one of his final executive actions in the White House, was endorsed by the county GOP in his bid to become only the second American president in history to serve two, non-consecutive terms.

The vote to replace the township’s official municipal club, Republicans for Toms River — which had in turn replaced the Toms River Regular Republican Club in 2021 under Gilmore’s predecessor — was 143 to 80 on Thursday night at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center on Route 37.

However, Gilmore said because of the “weighted voting system” utilized by the Ocean County Republican Council, the actual tally per voter was 143 to 67, because the club president of the now-defrocked Republicans for Toms River had been awarded 13 votes based on a proportional formula used by the county GOP to account for the voting population sizes of individual towns. Under that system, official municipal club presidents get one vote for themselves and one vote for every five election districts in their municipality.

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This was Gilmore’s second attempt to wrestle back control of the GOP’s flagship municipal organization here in the county seat, after losing the same vote at last year’s convention. Three years ago, it was then-Ocean County Republican Chairman Frank B. Holman III who was looking to consolidate his power base and reduce Gilmore’s influence, for whom the old Toms River club was still loyal. The vote back then was 124 to 91, to recognize the new club and nullify the old one, the latter which had been the official Republican club in Toms River for more than 40 years until that point.

Since last year’s convention vote, a new Republican mayor — Daniel Rodrick — was elected with almost 70% of the vote, winning every one of Toms River’s 63 election districts last November. Rodrick is a member of the old club and his new clout appears to have been a contributing factor in the shift of a majority’s support.

The votes for the commissioner candidates and Trump were by voice acclamation, as there were no challenges from the floor for those offices. Additionally, Trump’s campaign team was the only one for president to have sent a letter to the county GOP seeking its endorsement, Gilmore said.

In the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, real estate developer Curtis Bashaw of Cape May County won the endorsement of the county GOP.

Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, the two congressmen who represent Ocean County in the U.S. House of Representatives, each received the support of the organization by voice acclamation.

After the business of the convention was complete, a beaming Gilmore introduced the newly-minted Republican candidates for the two seats on the county commission that are being vacated by Quinn and Crea at the end of the year. Both incumbents had fallen out of favor with Gilmore after campaigning against his return to the party chairmanship in 2022.

Bacchione, who is executive director of the county GOP and the wife of Berkeley Mayor John A. Bacchione, said she had been persuaded to run for commissioner this year by both her husband and Gilmore himself.

Gilmore quipped that the Bacchiones were Ocean County’s new “power couple,” and he explained that Jennifier Bacchione’s two years as his executive director had given her insight into the issues and concerns of residents and local leaders in each of the county’s 33 municipalities.

“In every town we spoke with, they’re looking for change and fresh ideas,” Bacchione acknowledged. “I think that we’re ready to jump in.”

After weeks of courting municipal Republican officials in a bid for their support at Thursday’s convention, Bacchione noticed a similar pattern about their concerns with the county government.

“When I was talking to people, asking them for their support, I asked this question specifically: ‘When was the last time the county commissioners came and sat down and said, Brick Township, what do you need? Point Pleasant Borough, what do you need? Jackson Township, what do you need?’”

The answers she received informed her that this was not a conversation that happened often, if at all in many cases. That needs to change, Bacchione said.

“A lot of towns have flooding issues,” she said. “LBI always feels ignored. So, that’s one of the things Rob (Arace) and I have discussed. We want to make sure we go to every town and try to say, ‘what can we help you with?’ Because that’s what we’re here for.”

Arace agreed that the commissioners needed to be more visible in the communities they represent.

“There’s tremendous growth happening in Ocean County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state,” Arace said. “And, I think in some cases we’ve kind of fallen behind. In listening to all of the towns in northern and southern Ocean County, an ongoing theme has been that their needs have gone unmet and unheard. So, I want to make the commitment that rather than having them come up to us, we go to each town and listen to their needs.”

Most of the concerns Arace has heard to date are related to issues of population growth and whether the county’s infrastructure is prepared to meet the demand.

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The needs of an aging population in the county will also be a challenge for which the county must be better prepared, he said. In Manchester, where Arace has been mayor for little more than a year and which has a professional EMS division that handles about 13,000 calls each year, he observed there are administrative challenges in costs and with staffing.

He said he was concerned to learn last summer that the county government is exploring establishing its own EMS division — a proposal that he and Bacchione are skeptical about.

“We would take kind of an opposite approach, I actually think local is best,” Arace said. “I think regionalized services are best.”

The role of the county should be to facilitate block grant funding to municipalities and regional EMS organizations, to provide for staffing and capital improvement needs, he said.

“So that would also be, I think, another huge priority of ours as well,” Arace said.

Contact Asbury Park Press reporter Erik Larsen at elarsen@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Ocean County NJ GOP boss George Gilmore tightens his grip on power