Freiman, Drulis easily win re-election in LD16, Ciattarelli’s old district

Assemblymembers Roy Freiman (D-Hillsborough) and Mitchelle Drulis (D-Raritan Township) have won re-election, the New Jersey Globe projects, earning them another term in the Central Jersey legislative district once held by GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli.

The result wasn’t particularly close; as of 9:53 p.m. and with nearly every vote counted, Freiman has 29.6% of the vote and Drulis has 29.2%, while their Republican opponents, Raritan Township Committeeman Scott Sipos and Hillsborough Township Committeewoman Catherine Payne, each have 20.6%.

For decades, the Somerset County-based district was GOP territory, but Democratic mapmakers in 2011 made it much bluer by adding Princeton and South Brunswick to the seat. Their creative mapmaking also had the consequence of shifting Assemblywoman Denise Coyle’s home in Bernards out of the district, forcing Republicans to quickly find an alternative candidate – and they landed on Ciattarelli, then a Somerset County Freeholder.

Ciattarelli went on to win three terms representing the district, but Republicans were on borrowed time. In 2015, Andrew Zwicker (D-South Brunswick) defeated Assemblywoman Donna Simon (R-Readington) by 78 votes; in 2017, Ciattarelli decided to embark on his first campaign for governor, and Freiman flipped his seat blue, too. Zwicker finished the job in 2021 when he won the open Senate seat left behind by State Sen. Kip Bateman (R-Branchburg).

Republicans have held out hope over the years that they can make the district competitive once again, and this year they recruited a pair of strong challengers in Payne and Sipos, who have electoral track records in two of the district’s most vote-rich towns. With Ciattarelli – who now lives just outside the district in Somerville – at the top of the ticket, there could have been the makings of a competitive race.

But as Central Jersey’s suburbs have trended towards Democrats, the district has gotten increasingly inhospitable towards Republicans over the years; even Ciattarelli couldn’t carry it against Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021. Even as Payne and Sipos tried to argue that they would do a better job than the incumbents of lowering taxes and fighting overdevelopment, they were fighting against the tide in an electorate that simply prefers Democrats.

That was reflected in the district’s campaign finance data. According to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), $2.6 million had been spent as of October 21, making it the fourth-most expensive legislative race in the state – and the vast majority of that spending came from the Democratic side, with Freiman and Drulis outspending Payne and Sipos by a 10-1 margin.

That disparity, plus a strong result at the top of the ticket, was enough to secure a Democratic landslide; the margin this year is likely to be the largest Democratic victory in the district, ever.

With re-election secured, Freiman should be able to continue in his post as chairman of the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee, quietly one of the body’s most influential panels. Drulis is newer to the legislature, having been elected to succeed one-term Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer (D-Montgomery) in 2023 after years as a congressional and legislative staffer.