Mendham Borough Mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Christine Serrano Glassner won the first-in-the-state Hunterdon County GOP convention tonight, securing her first organization line for the Senate seat held by indicted Democratic incumbent Bob Menendez.
Serrano Glassner defeated Curtis Bashaw, a real estate developer and hotelier from Cape May, by a vote of 87 to 54, or 57% to 35%.
Alex Zdan, a former News12 reporter who has not officially entered the race, came in third place with 12 votes; getting zero votes were former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Gregg Mele, small businessman Michael Estrada, and U.S. Navy veteran and former GOP presidential candidate Albert Harshaw, who withdrew from the convention before the vote took place.
Serrano Glassner will now run on the organization line with Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) and Hunterdon County Commissioners Susan Soloway and Jeff Kuhl.
Serrano Glassner has been building a North Jersey-focused coalition so far – she also has widespread party support in her home county of Morris – while Bashaw’s base is in South Jersey, where he lives. It remains to be seen whose coalition will ultimately be larger; in 2020, Hunterdon County made up about 3.3% of the total votes cast in the statewide Republican primary.
There also appears to be a divide between Serrano Glassner and Bashaw on the issue of former President Donald Trump, who won the Hunterdon GOP line alongside Serrano Glassner tonight for his comeback campaign. Serrano Glassner has ties to Trump’s orbit through her husband, former top Trump staffer Michael Glassner, and has endorsed Trump for the presidency in 2024; Bashaw, meanwhile, donated to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign last year and to the Libertarian nominee in the 2016 presidential election.
Four other GOP Senate contenders did not file for tonight’s Hunterdon convention: former Tabernacle Deputy Mayor Justin Michael Murphy; Cresskill businessman Fred Schneiderman; Steve Boston, an entrepreneur from Ocean City; and Brian Jackson, a former software sales company owner from Dumont.
The eventual winner of the Republican primary is expected to face either Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) or First Lady Tammy Murphy, the two top Democratic candidates for the seat. Republicans have not won a Senate race in New Jersey since 1972, and it’s considered unlikely that this year will be the year to break that streak.
This story was updated at 10:22 a.m. on February 8 with a correction: the original story reported that Albert Harshaw had dropped out of the race. He has not.