On Tuesday, November 7th, Hamilton residents cast their votes in a multitude of municipal, county, and state-level races. In just the township of Hamilton, the mayor and two of the five township council seats were up for election. Also in Hamilton, three school board seats were up for reelection. In Mercer County, the county executive, two commissioner seats, and sheriff's office were voted on in this election. Hamilton voters also got the chance to vote in the state legislature races for New Jersey’s 14th district involving one State Senate seat and two General Assembly seats. Turnout in this election was abysmal as expected, only 27% of registered voters in Mercer County cast ballots. After a few hours of counting on election night, the results became clear, the Democratic party had prevailed in all of the election races in Hamilton Township & Mercer County. 

In our hometown of Hamilton, incumbent Democrat candidate for mayor Jeff Martin and his council running mates Pat Papero and Nancy Phillips defeated their Republican challengers Marty Flynn for mayor and Michael Chianese and Gino Melone for township council by roughly 3,000 votes. There are many plausible explanations for this result, the best of them being a combination of incumbency advantage and the perceived lack of significant failures or scandals by the electorate. Unseating an incumbent local politician is already an extremely difficult task, combined with a relatively stable and uneventful past four years as mayor made Jeff Martin especially re-electable. 

In Mercer County, Democrats won by large margins as expected for the political leanings of the county. Assemblyman Dan Benson won almost 70% of the vote in the race for County Executive, defeating Republican candidate Lisa Richford. In the race for Sheriff, incumbent Democrat Jack Kemler defeated his Republican challenger Bryan Boccanfuso. It’s important to note that this race also had a noticeable 3rd party challenger, Libertarian party-endorsed candidate Drew Cifrodelli won around 2% of the vote, slightly reducing Boccanfuso’s vote tally. Both Democratic incumbent commissioners Lucylle Walter and John Cimino were re-elected to their respective seats, defeating Republican challengers Joseph Stillwell and Denise Turner. 

In New Jersey’s 14th legislative district, incumbent Democrat State Senator Linda Greenstein defeated Republican challenger Pat Johnson. In the General Assembly election, Wayne DeAngelo was reelected to his Assembly seat and newcomer Tennille McCoy was elected to Dan Benson’s old seat. The defeated Republican challengers for this race were Skye Gilmartin and Adam Elias. 

Opinion

This was a bitter election night for the New Jersey Republican party as a whole, there was considerable optimism that Republicans might have the chance to gain a majority in one of the legislative chambers or at the very least gain a few seats. Even on the local level, there was that the Republican party could reclaim the traditionally Republican (at least locally) electorate of Hamilton. None of this materialized, Republicans lost a few Assembly seats, failed to gain any State Senate seats, and were convincingly defeated on the municipal level in Hamilton. I believe the primary reason for this is Republicans neglecting the usage of mail-in ballots. In an off-year election with very low voter turnout like 2023, the Republican party needs to make it as easy as possible for its core voter base to cast its votes. As shown by turnout, very few people take interest or participate in these elections, making it crucial for voters of the Republican party to have access to the relatively convenient mail-in ballots. This is how the Democrats achieved their victory this year, according to the Associated Press, 545,000 New Jerseyans voted by mail. Of this number, 329,000 were registered Democrats and just 129,500 were registered Republicans. These numbers explain a lot of Republican failures we saw on election night. The Democratic party remains far more component in the realm of mobilizing its voters with mail-in ballots than Republicans. The future Republican Party must increase its proficiency in using mail-in ballots lest it continue to be defeated in the future elections to come. Other issues like failing to message properly on abortion and falling short in articulating a plan to deal with the economic plight of middle-class New Jerseyans.