Chintall and Cianfarini: On to November

As the last few districts in West Deptford were posted in the unofficial results online Tuesday night, a freight train rumbled up Broad Street past the Colonial Cafe.

It had nothing on the runaway train inside the building.

Regular Organization Republicans Sam Cianfarini and Ray Chintall crushed their opponents, Loran Oglesby and Matt Mahon, by a nearly three-to-one margin in an election that saw nearly four times the number of votes as last year’s primary.

“This is one small victory–in November, we take back our community,” Cianfarini said.

Current freeholder Larry Wallace called the pair’s campaign “one of the best (he’s) ever seen,” and said the victory points to a Republican Party that is alive and well in both the county and West Deptford.

“This is Sweeney’s hometown; we will take it in November,” he said. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Amid the hugs and handshakes in a room crowded shoulder-to-shoulder, Joann Priga, chair of the West Deptford Republican Party, called it a total team effort.

“This is a great day for West Deptford,” she said, and added that the big turnout was a good sign for Republicans locally.

“Republicans in West Deptford are speaking out; they’re not going to sit back any more,” she said.

Chintall said he was encouraged by reports of Democrats trying to vote in the Republican primary.

“It’s the message,” Chintall said. “Our message was true and to the heart.”

In Oglesby and Mahon’s camp at Wedgewood County Club in Washington Township, emotions ran high in the other direction in the wake of their defeat.

“We ran the better campaign, we're the better candidates,” Oglesby said. “They ran a dirty, classless, mudslinging campaign.”

Her running mate voiced similar opinions about the nature of the campaign, and said Cianfarini and Chintall have too narrow a view to win in the general election.

“This was surprising,” Mahon said. “I'm not sure how we'll be moving forward, but we will continue with our message. The message of consensus is very important.”

The challenge of the November election now looms large for the victors.

Cianfarini said they’ll have to work hard to overcome voter apathy in an off-year election, but added that he thinks wdtruth.org and their efforts to expand the Republican Party will go a long way to doing just that.

He also hopes to engage voters by debating the Democrats in what he hopes will be a series of events.

“We’ve been doing three years of homework on this, and we’re ready to debate on any specifics,” Cianfarini said.

Chintall, going back to what he said about being encouraged by those reports of Democrats trying to vote Republican in the primary, said he thinks it’ll be important for he and Cianfarini to work to get beyond party affiliation, build coalitions and get people to recognize the problems facing West Deptford don’t have a D or R attached to them.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy in a strong Democratic town,” Chintall said.

Reporter Kristin Toussaint contributed to this report.