State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch) has increased his lead to 2,077 over Republican Lori Annetta after more votes in Monmouth County were counted on Thursday.
The path for Annetta to flip the 11th district State Senate seat is nearly impossible. There are about 2,100 ballots still left to be counted – not including mail-in ballots that may arrive until close of business on Monday, as long as they were postmarked by 8 PM on Election Day – and she would need to win just about all of them.
About 800 of the uncounted votes are provisional ballots, the New Jersey Globe has learned.
Annetta led Gopal by 490 votes on election, but the vote turned Gopal’s way on Wednesday and today. Gopal now leads by a 51.5%-48.5% margin, 35,255 to 33,178.
Republicans Marilyn Piperno (34,189) and Kimberly Eulner (34,033) still lead in the race for two State Assembly seats against Democratic incumbents Joann Downey (33,198) and Eric Houghtaling (32,973).
That creates a narrow but increasingly unlikely path for Democrats to hold the Assembly seats.
Downey trails Eulner by 835 votes, but she would need about three-quarters of the remaining votes to win.
The 11th district has elected only Democrats for the legislature since 2015, but GOP gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli beat Gov. Phil Murphy in the Monmouth County-based district.
Final 11th district results:
Gopal 51.9% // Annetta 48.1%
Piperno 25.1%, Eulner 24.9% // Downey 24.7%, Houghtaling 24.5% // Faison 0.8%
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