As November’s General Assembly elections approach, the New Jersey Globe will highlight several of the state’s most competitive legislative races. We start today in South Jersey’s 8th legislative district.
In his first-ever campaign for public office, Anthony Angelozzi suffered a cruel fate, at least in terms of electoral politics.
Running for Assembly in a competitive district that Republicans had dominated for decades, he and Democratic running mate Andrea Katz hit the tarmac and built a strong 2023 campaign against two GOP incumbents. The results were tight — laughably so — but Angelozzi finished third, just a couple of hundred votes behind his partner, who would go off to Trenton for two years.
Angelozzi quickly vowed to give it another shot.
“The week after Election Day in 2023, I just acted like I was the candidate,” Angelozzi told the New Jersey Globe. “And I said, I’m going to try this again.”
He wasn’t the only one to give it another shot. Next month’s election in the 8th legislative district will be a four-person rematch of 2023, when Assemblyman Michael Torrissi (R-Hammonton) and Assemblywoman Andrea Katz (D-Chesterfield) triumphed, and Angelozzi and former Assemblyman Brandon Umba languished just behind.
Just like 2023, the 8th is expected to feature one of the state’s most competitive races this year. The district is largely based in southern Burlington County, but reaches into Atlantic County to grab a handful of towns.
Republican insiders generally aren’t expecting to win a majority in the Assembly this year, but securing seats in districts like the 8th will be necessary for a strong foundation, should a chance to win a majority arise in the next few years. Additionally, the unusual circumstances of the 8th mean there’s already skin in the game for everyone involved: both parties have an incumbent to defend.
The South Jersey district was one of two districts to send one Democrat and one Republican to the Assembly in 2023. The other district, the 30th, split its delegation not because of partisan competitiveness, but because local Orthodox Jewish leadership backed now-Assemblyman Avi Schnall (D-Lakewood), powering a huge upset from Lakewood-based Jewish voters.
Until Katz ascended to the Assembly in 2023, a Democrat hadn’t won in the 8th since the 1970s. It wasn’t due to a lack of effort: in 2021, more than $8.5 million was spent on the race for LD-8’s state Senate and Assembly seats, ranking it the third-most expensive legislative contest in the state’s history.
Torrissi and Umba prevailed in 2021, and Democrats tempered expectations for 2023, especially as internal Democratic turmoil bubbled over the district’s state Senate race that year. They recruited Katz, the Chesterfield Democratic municipal chair, and Angelozzi, the Hammonton Education Association’s president, to challenge the GOP incumbents.
On election night, it looked like Torrissi and Umba would squeak by for another victory, and the New Jersey Globe and Associated Press called the race for the incumbents. But in the following days, as more mail-in and provisional ballots were processed, the Democrats made up ground, and Katz vaulted into second place and secured a seat.
The final results were strikingly close: The winners, Torrissi and Katz, received 27,881 and 27,636 votes, respectively. Angelozzi was right behind with 27,438 votes, and Umba earned 27,384. The GOP slate beat the Democratic ticket 50.1%-49.9%, and ticket-splitting led to one Republican and one Democrat moving on.
This fall, all four are back for a rematch. (The Democrats faced a primary challenge from Evesham Councilman Eddie Freeman III, who ran on Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s slate of anti-establishment Assembly candidates, but his campaign never materialized into a serious threat.)
The stakes of the race are clear. Though the latest round of campaign finance disclosures came in June, the candidates had already spent more than $400,000 on the race by that point. The national Democratic Party’s legislative committee named Katz and Angelozzi as two of 12 Spotlight Assembly candidates in the Garden State this year (Angelozzi, in fact, is the only non-incumbent to make the list).
Similar to 2023, the race has sparked a rift between the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825 and the broader New Jersey State Building and Construction Trades Council. The 8th’s state senator, Latham Tiver (R-Southampton), is the Operating Engineers’ business representative, and the union is backing Torrissi and Umba in an effort to get Tiver two GOP districtmates. The statewide building trades council, however, is backing both incumbents.
The candidates have returned to their all-hands-on-deck local campaigning, as well. They referred to the same issues dominating the governor’s race: taxes, affordability, utility rates, and education funding.
Umba said he wants to return to the Assembly to help build a better New Jersey for his soon-to-be 2-year-old son Connor — and Umba knocked on more than 3,000 doors to get back to Trenton. He criticized Katz, saying she voted throughout her term with other Trenton Democrats, who he blames for the increase in the cost of living.
“I’m sick of the pandering that is happening just to buy votes from people,” Umba said. “I’m here because I believe in South Jersey. I believe in representing them well and making sure results get back to the district, and I just don’t see that from my opponent.”
Katz, whom one Democratic strategist described as a “force,” said she’s exhausted from the campaigning but is feeling good about the race.
“People are concerned about their bills. They’re concerned about chaos. They just want us to get to work and do something to help them,” she said. “That’s what it boils down to, all of it. It’s, ‘Can you please go do something to help me?’ And yes, yes I can.”
Angelozzi, who prides himself on his door-to-door campaigning, said he knocked on the 6,000th door of the campaign last Sunday (Katz called him a “workhorse”). A high school teacher, part-time New Jersey Education Association employee, and union president, Angelozzi said he feels especially comfortable talking about school funding, which he said needs reform.
“I know quite a bit about how schools are funded, you know,” Angelozzi said. “And obviously that funding formula, I think people on both sides of the aisle are in agreement that changes need to be made. The amount of funding that districts are receiving year-to-year just varies too much, and it creates havoc for local communities, taxpayers, school districts.”
Strategists of both parties acknowledge the race is close and unpredictable, and admit it could come down to the momentum of the final weeks as voters react to President Donald Trump’s second term, the ongoing federal government shutdown, and the tense race for governor.
In addition to the politics, this election cycle represents recovery for Torrissi. During much of the 2023 campaign, the assemblyman battled colon cancer, undergoing multiple surgeries and procedures. He announced he had defeated the cancer late September that year. This year, despite concerns a full political schedule in a red-hot district could take a toll, he’s felt healthy.
“I have worked harder this year than I’ve ever worked for the people,” he said. “I know some some people were concerned about my health and different stuff, but I’m feeling really good about my own health, my own campaign as well, and it’s good to be out there talking to everybody again.”
