Joe Salerno has won the Democratic nomination for Congress in New Jersey’s 2nd district and will face Republican incumbent Jeff Van Drew in the general election.
Salerno increased his lead to 433 votes over Tim Alexander, Van Drew’s 2022 opponent, after all remaining ballots in Atlantic County were tallied. The Cape May businessman and first-time candidate now leads Tim Alexander, 13,939 to 13,506, a 37.3%-37.1% margin.
“I’m proud of our team, I’m grateful to the voters of South Jersey, and I’m ready to carry the fight forward for them,” Salerno said tonight.
Carolyn Rush is in third place with 7,764 votes (21.3%); she lost the Democratic primary to Alexander two years ago. Rodney Dean has 1,226 (3.4%).
Salerno picked up 134 votes in Atlantic, with Alexander gaining 89; Salerno won the provisional ballots, 130-75.
There are 23 Democratic provisional ballots still uncounted in Ocean County; it’s not immediately clear how many of the 159 uncounted provisionals in Cape May were cast in the Democratic primary. There are seven uncounted provisional ballots in Gloucester, some of which may be from Republicans. All ballots in Salem County are tallied.
Cumberland County will count 305 vote-by-mail and 148 provisionals on Saturday; the party breakdown is unclear. The reason for the extraordinary delay in counting is ambiguous.
Even if every uncounted vote was in the Democratic primary, Alexander would still need to win roughly 84% of the remaining ballots to win – an unfathomable percentage.
“The more people I met, the more we got our message out, the more we could feel our support and momentum growing,” said Salerno. “I knew we were winning people over, it was just a question of whether we could connect with enough of them before primary day.”
Salerno had maintained a steady lead since Election Day when he ended the night with a 441-vote lead.
After the final tally, John Bettis has won the Democratic nomination for a council seat in Pleasantville’s Ward 1 by 10 votes over Norman Lee Dennis, Jr. Bettis defeated Dennis, 231-221, with 180 votes for Allen Maddox. Pleasantville Mayor Judy Ward won the Democratic primary for a second term by 58 votes against Councilman Tony Davenport, 662-604; Julio Sanchez finished third with 274 votes.