Kirsten Light, a former school board member, and Paul Humbert, a 74-year-old attorney, won the two Republican nominations for the Bernards Township Committee, edging out newcomer Vanathi Raghupathy.
As of 1:51 a.m., Humbert leads with 1,242 votes, followed by Light with 954 and Raghupathy with 786.
They will face two Democrats, Mayor Ana Duarte McCarthy and Joan Bannan, a former township committeewoman and assistant Morris County prosecutor, in the general election.
With no county lines and office-block ballots, Light won the primary without support from the organization. The local GOP organization backed Humbert and Raghupathy.
Democrats captured control of the Bernards Township Committee last year for the first time since 1938. Republicans need to win one of the seats to win back the majority.
Once a Republican stronghold, Bernards has swung Democratic in recent years; in 2024, Kamala Harris won the township by more than 10 percentage points against Donald Trump.
In 2025, Mikie Sherrill carried Bernards by nearly 8.5 points against Jack Ciattarelli; four years earlier, Ciattarelli won Bernards by almost 5.5 points.
Last year, Democrat Stephen Brett Hodges defeated incumbent David Tancredi by a 51%-49% margin. In a race for an unexpired term, Democrat John Tompkins won with 52%, flipping a second seat.
In the race for State Assembly, Democrats Andrew Macurdy (6,010) and Vincent Kearney (5,902) won Bernards over Republican incumbents Nancy Muñoz (5,314) and Michele Matsikoudis (5,292). Republicans need to return to winning Bernards if they want a chance to reclaim those Assembly seats in 2027.
Duarte McCarthy was elected to the township committee in 2023.
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