Fantasia, Inganamort win close Assembly primary in LD24

Sussex County Commissioner Dawn Fantasia (R-Franklin) and Chester Township Mayor Mike Inganamort have won the Republican primary for two Assembly seats in the 24th legislative district, defeating Warren County Commissioner Jason Sarnoski (R-Independence) and Lafayette Board of Education President Josh Aikens, the New Jersey Globe projects.

As of 10:45 p.m., Fantasia is in first place with 27% of the vote, followed by Inganamort with 25%. Aikens has 22% and Sarnoski 21%, with a fifth candidate, Rob Kovic, getting the remaining 5%.

The primary in the 24th district, which covers some of the most conservative towns in the state, began with a cascade of retirements. First, Assemblyman Parker Space (R-Wantage) said he’d retire; Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-Wantage) soon followed him out the door; and finally and most notably, Senate Minority Leader Steve Oroho (R-Franklin) – still in his first term as leader of the Senate GOP caucus – announced his retirement.

With Oroho’s exit, Space jumped back into the campaign as a candidate for State Senate. While he initially faced a challenge from former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, Lonegan dropped out of the race a few weeks before the filing deadline, leaving Space unopposed.

Not long after launching his campaign, Space teamed up with Fantasia and Inganamort, but his endorsement didn’t deter Sarnoski or Aikens, who joined together as a slate of their own.

Ideologically, the campaign was a race to the right. Sarnoski and Aikens tried to argue that their opponents were too establishment-friendly and wouldn’t be strong enough conservatives, but on virtually every policy issue, the four candidates all took nearly identical stances.

In the absence of obvious ideological divides, much of the campaign revolved around personal attacks. Aikens’ support for Barack Obama in 2008, Inganamort’s consulting firm, and – most unpleasantly – Fantasia’s family life all became subjects of debate.

A majority of the district’s Republican voters, around 63%, live in Sussex County, which doesn’t have a county organizational line or even an official county party endorsement. That meant that in a huge portion of the district, the five candidates were all on a theoretically even playing field, though Fantasia and Inganamort had the backing of Oroho and a number of other prominent Sussex Republicans.

The same could not be said for the district’s other two counties. In Morris County, Fantasia and Inganamort had the county line, while Warren County gave its line to Sarnoski and Aikens; in fact, Warren Republicans technically didn’t have a Senate candidate in the 24th district, since Space turned down the line in order to stay unified with his running mates.

And indeed, the county-level results reflect those differences. Fantasia and Inganamort lead in Morris County; Sarnoski and Aikens are well ahead in the two small Warren towns in the district; and Sussex County is relatively close, but supporting Fantasia and Inganamort.