Thank you for reading!

(apologies in advance for the self promo but) yes, the local R's have an entrenched system there. Here's an example from the Middletown school board race medium.com/@publicrecor...

Middletown is comprised of many named neighborhoods and confusing postal designations. Don't be fooled by the Whole Foods in "Red Bank", it's actually Middletown. Parts of town even have a Rumson mailing address.

The story missed the opportunity to reference Middletown's Nut Swamp Road. Perhaps that is a good thing.

This is just one illustrative example of from our research into local party-network spending: Mapping Influence and Information Flow: The Convergence of Party Spending and Political Media in Monmouth County

None of the content contains "paid for by" disclosures. To readers, it appears as organic news from a local community source.

Business records identify the Substack editor as a vendor that is used by many, local Republican candidates. Campaign payments align with post dates.

One local Substack regularly wrote positive articles about the candidates, while espousing anti-trans ideology and verbally attacking state officials.

Those articles became Facebook posts, which were then pushed to local community groups.

Voters would never know the content was paid for.

The 2023 election in Middletown was the center of the "parental rights" movement in New Jersey.

The Attorney General had sued the school district for adopting an anti-trans measure that violated state policies.

Board members took their re-election campaign to the media, appearing on Fox News.

A handful of fluff stories on a Substack may not seem like much at first. Yet, it is the foundation of a distribution network with digital amplification that is never disclosed to voters. In the coming days, we illustrate how the partisan network injects itself into school board races.

Lastly, Scott Fegler failed to win his long shot bid for Congress in 2024, but he did receive glowing press while threatening Frank Pallone with a lawsuit.

While running for mayor of Belmar, Sean Di Somma received favorable press before the campaign listed expenses to that vendor.

The findings highlight a transparency gap where political messaging and local news overlap, falling between journalism and campaign disclosure law.

Full study: Mapping Influence and Information Flow: The Convergence of Party Spending and Political Media in Monmouth County.

Using data from NJ ELEC and the FEC, the analysis connects vendor payments to the timing of politically favorable articles on a regional Substack that described itself as independent.

Many articles appeared within weeks of related campaign disbursements.