Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) will need to wait until at least Friday to know who won the Democratic primary to oppose him in New Jersey’s 2nd district after the race ended election night too close to call.
Businessman Joe Salerno is holding on to a 441-vote lead against attorney Tim Alexander, 12,677-12,236 (38.2% – 36.9%). Carolyn Rush has 21.6% and Rodney Dean has 3.3%.
Right now, the electoral math strongly favors Salerno.
Atlantic County Assignment Judge Michael Blee will decide the fate of 1,803 vote-by-mail ballots – roughly 700 of them from Democrats – that have not been counted. The Board of Elections opened those ballots before May 6; New Jersey election law doesn’t permit them to be opened and prepared for counting until five days before Election Day.
The Board of Elections deadlocked 2-2 along party lines on Tuesday morning, with Democrats voting to count the votes. That means Blee gets to break the tie.
Alexander won vote-by-mail ballots by about eight percentage points. If Blee permits the votes to be counted, and if they fall along the same percentages as the rest of the mail-in ballots, that will allow Alexander to cut Salerno’s lead by less than 100 votes.
Cutting a lead of 441 votes might be insurmountable. Blee gave no indication of which way he would rule, but past decisions show that he leans toward allowing more votes, not less, to be counted.
All machine votes are in the tally. VBMs postmarked by 8 PM tonight will be counted if they arrive by close of business on Monday, and some mail-in ballots require voters to cure a technical defect. It’s unclear how many provisional ballots were cast, if any.
Salerno, a first time candidate, carried Cape May by 1,246 votes and the Gloucester portion of the district by 152; Alexander leads by 311 in Atlantic, 265 in Cumberland, 365 in Ocean, and 117 in Salem.