Roxbury, a Morris County Republican stronghold where Donald Trump won by nearly 19 points two years ago, voted Democratic in Tuesday’s congressional election after a bitter controversy over the Trump administration’s decision to locate an immigration detention center in the township.
Rep.-elect Rebecca Bennett (D-Bridgewater) defeated Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) by 338 votes, 4,898 to 4,560, a remarkable turnaround in a municipality where Kean had posted landslide victories in his previous two congressional campaigns.
Bennett received 51.1% of the vote to Kean’s 47.5%, a 3.5-point victory that represents a swing of more than 21 percentage points since 2024.
In 2022, Kean carried Roxbury by more than 19 percentage points against then-Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes); he won Roxbury by 5,611 votes – more than half of his 9,309-vote margin. He took a thousand-vote haircut in four years. (His margin against Sue Altman in 2024 was more than 18 points).
The township’s Republican credentials were hardly in doubt. Trump carried Roxbury by 18.5 points in 2024, and Republican Jack Ciattarelli defeated Democrat Mikie Sherrill by nearly 11 points in last year’s gubernatorial election.
But the Trump administration’s decision to purchase a warehouse on Route 46 for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility scrambled local politics, putting Republican elected officials at odds with a Republican president and, for a time, their own Republican congressman.
Roxbury’s all-Republican Township Council unanimously opposed the facility and joined the Sherrill administration in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the project.
Mayor Shawn Potillo and the council publicly criticized Kean, saying he had not provided the level of advocacy they expected on behalf of township residents.
Kean defended his involvement, saying he had contacted senior Department of Homeland Security officials and was working toward a solution. In February, he introduced legislation that would reimburse municipalities for costs associated with federal immigration detention facilities, including lost property tax revenue and infrastructure improvements.
But Kean stopped short of formally opposing the detention center until September 27, when he announced his opposition during his only debate with Bennett, sponsored by the New Jersey Globe and Rider University.
Bennett had opposed the project for months, siding with local Republican officials who maintained that the township lacked the infrastructure to accommodate a facility that could house as many as 1,500 detainees.
Instead of debating federal immigration policy, the issue was entirely local. Township officials raised concerns about water and sewer capacity, traffic, environmental damage, and the loss of local property tax revenue.
In May, federal officials agreed not to proceed with converting the warehouse into a detention facility until an environmental assessment was completed, following the lawsuit filed by Roxbury and the Sherrill administration.
Roxbury didn’t just vote against Kean.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Cory Booker carried Roxbury by 226 votes, defeating Republican Justin Murphy, 4,745 to 4,519, or 49.7% to 47.3%. Independent candidates received another 210 votes.
In the Morris County commissioner race, Democrat Christopher Russo defeated Republican incumbent Tayfun Selen by 141 votes, 4,712 to 4,571, or 50.7% to 49.2% of the votes cast for commissioner candidates.
The results were striking in a municipality that has traditionally given Republicans substantial margins in countywide, statewide, and congressional elections.
Bennett ran 153 votes ahead of Booker, while Kean received 41 more votes than Murphy. Russo received 33 fewer votes than Booker, while Selen received 11 more votes than Kean.
Bennett’s margin of victory was also larger than Booker’s or Russo’s, suggesting the Democratic nominee attracted support beyond voters who backed the rest of the Democratic ticket.
The election drew 9,738 voters from Roxbury’s 18,682 registered voters, a turnout of 52.12%. Of those ballots, 6,487 were cast on Election Day, 1,896 during early in-person voting and 1,355 by mail.
The results don’t prove how many voters have changed their minds because of the detention center controversy, particularly in an election that produced substantial Democratic gains across New Jersey.
But the magnitude of Kean’s drop in Roxbury, where he had previously enjoyed margins exceeding 18 points, shows how suddenly the township’s political landscape changed in a one election cycle.
For Republicans, the loss of Roxbury was particularly significant because the township had been a reliable source of votes in Kean’s two successful congressional campaigns.
And for Bennett, who defeated Kean districtwide by 16 percentage points, Roxbury was one of the clearest examples of how far Democrats penetrated traditionally Republican territory in 2026.