Mapping three close calls for Assembly incumbents

This year’s set of Assembly primaries was among the most anticipated in decades, with many progressives and anti-establishment figures hoping to knock out party-backed incumbents in the first primary without a party-line ballot system.

The energy came in large part from Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s slate of anti-establishment Assembly candidates, which he organized as part of his campaign for governor.

In each of these races, the incumbents, all Democrats, held the benefit of party support and a strong fundraising advantage and ended up securing renomination. These incumbent victories show that even in a lineless Jersey, there remains an electoral benefit in being part of a countywide team.

But these results also prove these incumbents are far from invulnerable. In the races below, insurgent candidates proved they could not only win their home bases but also peel away votes across the district, even with severe resource hurdles.

Here are maps and analysis for three races in which Assembly incumbents eked out victory over a challenger:

LD-7

In Burlington County’s 7th legislative district, Assemblywoman Carol Murphy (D-Mount Laurel) cruised to renomination, earning more than 46% in a three-candidate race. The competition for the second seat, however, was fierce.

Assemblyman Balvir Singh (D-Burlington Twp), who had been an incumbent for less than six months, beating Bordentown Township Mayor Eric Holliday by about 700 votes. (Because the race was truly between Singh and Holliday, Murphy was not included in the map for visualization purposes; the map would have been just one color, as she beat them both in every town.)

Singh, though technically an incumbent, had been appointed to the role in a January special convention, meaning he had never been on the ballot as an assemblyman. Still, tuned-in primary voters would have remembered him from the Burlington County Commission, where he served from 2018 until his appointment to the Assembly.

Holliday has served as mayor of Bordentown for a decade and ran with Fulop’s slate of Assembly candidates.

Holliday crushed Singh in his home base of Bordentown Township, though he still came about 4 percentage points shy of beating Murphy. Holliday also gained votes on Singh in the rest of Greater Bordentown, including neighboring Bordentown City, which separated from the township in 1877, and Fieldsboro, which separated from the township in 1894. 

Regardless, those three towns made up just a little bit more than 6% of the votes cast, and Holliday would have to win elsewhere to have a chance in the race. He gained a little less than 40 votes on Singh in Palmyra, but his real battleground strength came in Willingboro.

Willingboro cast about 8,700 votes in the primary, more than any other town except Mount Laurel, and Holliday beat Singh by about 8 percentage points and gained more than 300 votes. A majority-Black borough, it was one of two municipalities in Burlington County to vote for Newark Mayor Ras Baraka in the gubernatorial primary. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee for governor, secured every other town in the district. 

After Willingboro, though, momentum ran out for Holliday. Singh, who spent years in countywide office and held the backing of the county party, cut down Holliday’s gains in most of the district’s other towns. He notched a 14-point advantage over Holliday in Moorestown and a 10-point advantage in Burlington, two of the district’s other key towns. Most importantly, he beat Holliday by nearly 10 percentage points in Mount Laurel, the district’s largest voting bloc.

Singh outspent Holliday, about $130k to $35k. Most of Holliday’s came from funds he’d raised in his bids for mayor. Singh also likely received second-hand benefits from running mate Murphy, who spent more than $270k in the primary. 

Holliday showed true legs in the 7th, and with fundraising parity, results could have been different. But Singh’s consistent performance across the district made the difference, and assuming he wins the general election, he’ll be coming back in 2027 with a full term under his belt.

LD-17

Heading into the primary cycle, it was thought progressives might line up challengers to try to take down Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-Franklin), the author of a much-maligned open records reform bill. But when the dust of filing day settled, only three Democrats had signed up: Danielsen, his Assemblymate Kevin Egan (D-New Brunswick), and Piscataway Board of Education member Loretta Rivers, who ran with Fulop’s Assembly slate.

Egan and Danielsen ended up securing renomination, but the margins were far from decisive. Unlike the 7th, this was not a case of one candidate blowing out the field and two far behind. Egan did outperform running mate Danielsen, but it wasn’t a Carol Murphy-level blowout. Egan won 35.6% of the vote, with Danielsen following at 32.9% and Rivers with 31.5%.

Because mapping a three-person race is difficult, the first-place finishing Egan isn’t included in the visualization. But the results were more of a three-legged mélange than they appear when shown as a two-way race between Danielsen and Rivers: Rivers defeated both incumbents in South Bound Brook, while Danielsen finished first in his hometown of Franklin. Egan finished first in Piscataway, New Brunswick, and North Brunswick.

While Rivers was ultimately about 500 votes shy of Danielsen, she almost pulled off an upset despite a major name recognition disadvantage and a maybe-even-more-major fundraising disadvantage. Rivers is in just her second year as a Piscataway school board member, a position that doesn’t carry nearly the same incumbency advantage as Danielsen’s decade in the Assembly. And while Danielsen and Egan collectively spent more than $400k on the primary, Rivers reported raising just $14k.

Rivers’ largest percentage margin against Danielsen came in South Bound Brook, but the tiny town’s boost was only worth a 28-vote margin in the end. She edged out the incumbent in North Brunswick, which was essentially cancelled out by his narrow win in New Brunswick.

The real battle came in boosting the margins in their home bases. Rivers beat Danielsen by a little more than 6 percentage points in Piscataway, netting her nearly 400 votes. But Danielsen’s strength in Franklin, his lifelong home and the district’s largest municipality, was too much to overcome. The incumbent beat her by nearly 10 points in Franklin, gaining almost 900 votes and renomination.

LD-34

Essex County’s 34th legislative district is the only race on this list to feature four candidates competing on two slates, Jersey style.

Freshmen Assemblymembers Carmen Morales (D-Belleville) and Mike Venezia (D-Bloomfield) sought renomination with party support but faced two Fulop-backed challengers in the form of former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks and Belleville Councilman Frank Vélez.

Morales earned a somewhat comfortable first-place finish with 34%, but the race for the second seat was far from comfortable. Venezia beat Claybrooks by about 4.5 points, a margin of 866 votes. (Vélez, while finishing second in his town of Belleville, finished several thousand votes behind the others.)

While the incumbents had some name-recognition advantage, Claybrooks’ congressional run last year put her on the map. She sought to succeed the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. and finished fifth in a special primary election won by now-Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark).

The results in LD-34 map similarly to the Democratic primary for governor, at least partly for racial reasons. Claybrooks beat Venezia by significant margins in East Orange and Orange: 20 and 22 percentage points, respectively. The former is her hometown and former council stomping grounds, of course, but they’re also the district’s two majority-Black municipalities.

Those are also the two LD-34 towns that Ras Baraka won in his primary, though he won them by even bigger margins. In East Orange, he beat second-place finisher Mikie Sherrill by 41 points; in Orange, he beat her by 51.

The four other towns were each won by Sherrill and Venezia, though. And while Baraka’s massive margins in the Oranges were enough for him to carry LD-34, the same couldn’t be said for Claybrooks.

Venezia, a former Bloomfield mayor, beat Claybrooks by 26 points in the city, which cast 11,482 votes, the most of any LD-34 town (though East Orange was right behind with 11,479). He also ran up the margins in the majority-white towns of Glen Ridge and Nutley.

Like the other races on this list, the incumbents vastly outspent their challengers. A joint account backing Morales and Venezia spent nearly $160,000, with another $80,000 worth of in-kind contributions. Morales’ personal campaign spent another $89k, and Venezia’s solo filings showed another $215k in campaign spending.

Claybrooks and Vélez, meanwhile, kept their spending in a joint account. They haven’t filed a final report, but in the report leading up to primary day, the pair had reported spending about $8,500 on campaign operations, with about another $3k of in-kind contributions.