Mandelblatt, Gunderman win Union County line for Assembly bid

Union County Democrats have picked Lisa Mandelblatt and Stacey Gunderman  as their candidates for State Assembly in the 21st district.

They defeated Jill LaZare and five others.

Mandelblatt finished first with 7 votes and Gunderman won 6.

LaZare received five votes, with one each for Union Leader Carlos Gomez and Ileana Montes, a former director of the state Division on Women.

A screening committee vote today puts the two on the organization line in their bids to unseat incumbents Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) and Nancy Munoz (R-Summit) in the fall.

It is not immediately clear whether the other contenders will remain in the race.

Jois, a Summit attorney, received zero votes in his home county for the second year in a row.  In 2018, he was shutout as a candidate for Congress and finished last in the primary with just 14% of the vote.

One candidate, progressive activist Kyla Rodger, did not participate in the Union County screening process.

The Somerset County Democratic convention is scheduled for next month.  The county chair, Peg Schaffer, has not precluded the possibility of awarding their line to different candidates or permitting an open primary.

Morris County Democrats have indicated that they will follow the lead of the Union County Democrats.

Gunderman is the New Providence Democratic municipal chair.  LaZare, an attorney, ran against Bramnick and Munoz in 2013 and 2015 and against State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) in 2017.