Scutari’s Law Delivered: NJ County Parties Rake In $22M as Pay-to-Play Thrives

NJ’s 42 county party committees raised ~$22.4M, the strongest county-party fundraising year since 2003 according to the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission; spending nearly all of it ($21.7M) during the ’25 gubernatorial election year and ended the year with a little over $5.2M cash on hand.

If you recall, campaign fundraising laws in NJ were gutted in 2023 and doubled what donors could give from $37,500 to 75K with inflation adjustments pushing the ceiling to $79K as of Jan.2025. On top of that, County parties can accept yet another $39,500 for ‘housekeeping’ which means a single donor can give up to $118,500.

In fact, due to the higher limits, county committee got 119 checks larger than the old 2023 limit creating a $3.4M windfall just because of the higher limits.

Public contractors were a main character in the story and gave ~$3.5M to county party committees in 2025- up from $1.4 million in 2023, the first year under the relaxed rules.

Before the 2023 law took effect, contractors who gave more than $300 to county parties risked losing public contracts, now they can give up to $118,500 without losing sleep.

The 2025 gubernatorial year also drew major out-of-state money; an issue we identified as a problem in ‘Concentrated Influence: Following the Money in NJ Politics (2019–2024) Part 1’; published in April of last year.

According to NJ ELEC, county parties received $4.4M from significant out-of-state contributors, including Securing American Greatness at $1.264M, the Democratic Governors Association at ~$1M, Uber Technologies at $530K along with the typical collection of unions and political funds. By comparison, those same nine donors gave county parties less than $200,000 in 2023.

Democratic county committees raised and spent far more than their Republican counterparts; raising $15.8M, spending $15.2M and landing with $4.2M cash on hand. Republicans raised $6.6M, spent $6.5M and ended with ~$958K cash on hand.

Among Democratic county committees, Hudson raised the most at $2.36 million, followed by Middlesex at $2.25 million, Bergen at $1.75 million, and Essex at $1.53 million. Union County Democrats raised $765,697, spent $726,163, and reported $450,569 cash on hand.

On the Republican side, Monmouth led with $1.1 million raised, followed by Ocean at $705,936, Passaic at $476,835, and Somerset at $451,676. Union County Republicans raised $289,014, spent $277,403, and reported $41,586 cash on hand.

So this points to county party orgs doubling down on their role as money machines feeding the state politics monster due to the changes to NJ’s fundraising laws three years ago. It also reinforces something we highlighted time and time again, pay to play politics is alive and well in NJ with county party committees playing middleman to avoid the technicalities of the law as the same individuals pouring money into elections are often the beneficiaries of the decisions those in power make.

Bonus question, which NJ Senator spearheaded the 2023 change in campaign finance?

You should only really need one guess, if you don’t know.

That’s right – Senate President Nicholas Scutari.

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