Democrats have swept all three seats on the Cumberland County Board of Freeholders, with Donna Pearson defeating Republican Victoria Lods by 2,463 votes.
Pearson returns the freeholder board following a 17-year absence after winning an off-the-line victory in the July Democratic primary.
Two other Democratic incumbents, Carol Musso and George Castellini, were also re-elected.
All vote-by-mail, provisional and machine votes have been counted, with just returned cure letters left to be tallied. The deadline for cure letters is November 18. Voter turnout in Cumberland was 72%.
Musso was the top vote-getter with 31,494 votes, followed by Castellini (31,363), Pearson (31,101), Lods (28,638), and Republicans Darwin Cooper (28,376) and Antonio Romero (27,663).
Pearson, a freeholder from 1998 to 2004, will take the seat of her one-time running mate, Jack Surrency.
Denied Democratic organization support for re-election, Surrency led an insurgent ticket in the primary that included Pearson and bracketed with Democratic congressional candidate Amy Kennedy.
Pearson defeated Millville Commissioner Bruce Cooper by a razor-thin 124 votes in the Democratic primary, while Surrency ran sixth, 1,033 votes behind his running mate.
A former mayor of Deerfield, Musso was first elected freeholder in 2011. Castellini, a former Vineland police officer and Cumberland Sheriff’s officer, will start his second term as a freeholder in January
Democrats have a 6-1 majority on what will become the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners on January 1.
Joe Biden carried Cumberland by a 52%-46% margin again Donald Trump. In the U.S. Senate race, Cory Booker carried the county, 53%-44%, against Republican Rik Mehta.
Kennedy won Cumberland in her unsuccessful bid to unseat party-switching Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis). She took the county by 2,518 votes, 50.8% to 46.7%.
Democratic Sheriff Robert Austino was re-elected by a 53.5% to 46.4% margin over his GOP challenger, Michael Donato.