Republicans in the 3rd congressional district have nominated Holmdel physician Rajesh Mohan, the New Jersey Globe projects, in their effort to flip the seat Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) is leaving behind to run for Senate.
As of 1:02 a.m., Mohan leads Shirley Maia-Cusick, a businesswoman and immigration consultant, 39%-30%. Two other candidates, Mike Faccone and Greg Sobocinski, have 17% and 14%, respectively.
Mohan, whose one run for office prior to this year was as an independent for Holmdel Township Committee in 2022, was the GOP establishment favorite for the 3rd district, which covers parts of Burlington, Mercer, and Monmouth Counties. He easily won every county organizational line in the district, which under normal circumstances would have been enough to make him the prohibitive favorite for the nomination.
But Burlington County Clerk Joanne Schwartz complicated matters when she chose to nix her county’s GOP line, saying that a federal court decision striking down the Democratic county line gave her the leeway to do so. (A state judge later agreed with her.) That robbed Mohan of a key advantage in the district’s biggest county, since he’d no longer appear on Burlington ballots in a column with every other party-endorsed candidate, and it breathed new life into the campaigns of his opponents.
Maia-Cusick in particular seemed like a potentially serious challenger, using self-funding to raise nearly three times as much as Mohan, though much of that money went towards consultants and staff rather than towards actual campaigning.
In the end, Mohan’s institutional backing proved to be enough to win the nomination, though he did still do best in the counties where the line remained in place. He has 52% of the vote in Monmouth County and 51% in Mercer County, both of which designed their GOP ballots as usual, but Maia-Cusick leads him 34%-30% in Burlington County.
Mohan will now head to a general election against Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D-Delran), who won the Democratic primary for the seat. While the 3rd district was once highly competitive – Kim flipped it from Republicans by only around 4,000 votes in 2018 – it was redrawn prior to the 2022 elections to be much more Democratic, and Conaway starts out as the clear favorite.