West Deptford Republican Fundraising Up, Still Lagging Democrats

The West Deptford Republican township committee primary ratcheted up the rhetoric and drove more people to the polls in what was easily the most expensive primary election in the township in the past decade, if not ever, according to final totals filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC).

The bitterly-contested race saw the splintered Republicans raise the kind of money normally reserved for a general election, and blew past the sum total of last year’s efforts, not to mention most general election totals over the last ten years, raising a combined $19,000 between the two campaigns by Primary Day.

Jearl Waddell, a former Republican candidate for township committee, and one of the campaign managers for Ray Chintall and Sam Cianfarini, said the increased interest in this year’s election accounts for at least some of that spike in funding.

“People really came out, people really responded,” he said, which includes some cross-party interest.

The two campaigns went about their funding in very different ways; Loran Oglesby and Matt Mahon largely self-financed their campaign, according to their ELEC filings, while Chintall and Cianfarini scored a number of $1,000 donations from individuals, with some extra backing from the West Deptford Republican Party.

“We’ve had a pretty good response [in donations] so far,” Waddell said.

When it came to spending, though, Mahon and Oglesby outspent their opponents on directing their message to voters–which, between the two campaigns, included everything from yard signs to mailers to robocalls–by about a seven-to-one margin in the losing effort.

Waddell said it was similar to last year’s general election, which saw he and running mate Sean Kilpatrick, who went on to win a seat on committee, get outspent by the Democrats . It’s the message that’s more important, he said.

“We’ve got the facts, they’ve got the money,” Waddell said.

The deficit could be even steeper for the Republicans against Democrats Hunter Kintzing and Denice DiCarlo, whose ELEC filings show they raked in over $40,000 heading into the primary.

Not all of that was cash, however–about half of what they raised was in-kind donations from the local Democratic Party, which footed the bill for campaign literature, signs and photography.

At the party level, though, the money difference is even greater–the local Democrats have just a shade under $100,000 in cash on hand in their war chest, while the Republicans took about $1,800 remaining in their party coffers and shifted it directly to Cianfarini and Chintall’s campaign effort.

Still, Waddell said the Republican campaign isn’t intimidated by wads of cash.

“I don’t believe funds are going to be key,” he said.