Myhre, Rumpf win in LD9

Assemblymen Gregory Myhre (R-Stafford) and Brian Rumpf (R-Little Egg Harbor) have won re-election in the 9th legislative district, the New Jersey Globe projects, easily keeping their deep-red southern Ocean County seat in GOP hands.

As of 11:50 p.m. and with nearly all votes counted, Rumpf and Myhre have a combined 64% of the vote, while the Democratic slate of UN observer Rosalee Keech and former paralegal Lisa Bennett trails behind with 36%.

The 9th district is one of the most Republican in the state, and all of its action typically comes in GOP primaries. That’s what happened two years ago, when a huge crop of challengers emerged to take on Rumpf and Assemblywoman DiAnne Gove (R-Long Beach); the race eventually whittled down to Rumpf, Gove, and Myhre, the mayor of Stafford Township at the time, and Gove dropped her re-election bid after losing party support at the Ocean GOP convention.

No similar contest developed this year, and Myhre and Rumpf – one of the longest-serving members of the GOP caucus, having first arrived in Trenton in 2003 – won their primary unopposed.

Democrats, on the other hand, did have a contested primary for the district, featuring one party-backed candidate (Bennett) and two candidates endorsed by gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop (Keech and disability advocate Donald Campbell); Bennett and Keech won convincingly.