Rumana, Russo Cruise to Primary Victory in District 40

With 78 percent of the polling districts reporting, Republican incumbents David Russo (Ridgewood) and Scott Rumana (Wayne) will take on two Democratic challengers in November.

Both Rumana and Russo, who have been longtime power-brokers in Passaic and Bergen County, respectively, are leading fellow GOP candidates Ernesto Sesso and Louis D'Angelo in the District 40 State Assembly primary by a large margin with few districts left to report.

As of 10:30 p.m. the incumbents have each tallied over 3,700 votes to roughly 1,200 votes apiece for the challengers. Sesso, a businessman from Woodland Park, and D'Angelo, a mortgage broker from Totowa, have garnered about 12-13 percent of the vote.

The two leading Republicans will take on Democrats William Brennan and Cassandra Lazzarra, who ran unopposed in the primary, in the November election.

A councilman from Wayne, Brennan is a bitter rival of Rumana, whom he brought a complaint of ethics violations to the state. The Democrat stemming from an incident in which Rumana appeared to the state utility board to lobby on behalf of an energy plant in the township, as the co-chair of non-profit Wayne Energy Corporation (WEC). The charges were dismissed by the ethics committee but bad blood has been brewing for years.

The other side of the Democrat assembly bracket is a political newcomer. Lazzarra, a teacher from Woodland Park, is the Woodland Park Educational Association President. Not surprisingly, she's been endorsed by the NJEA.

Essex County's Cedar Grove is guaranteed to receive representation from whichever candidate is crowned District 40 State Senator in November. State Senator Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove) will battle Democrat John Zunic (D-Cedar Grove).

The connected Republican serves as the Senate Minority Whip and has been a mainstay in Trenton since 1995. Zunic, an attorney who serves as the municipal prosecutor for the Borough of Fairview, is the deputy mayor of Cedar Grove and is expected to be named the mayor shortly.