For three years in a row, New Jersey Democrats have steadily lost ground in county offices, the oft-overlooked middle tier of state politics that has tremendous power over government contracts, elections administration, and more.
In the three election cycles since Joe Biden was elected as president, Republicans flipped 16 countywide offices, winning total control of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners and pushing Democrats to near-extinction in nominally competitive Atlantic County. During the same time period, Democrats have flipped exactly one county office: Burlington County Surrogate, which they won in 2021.
But with another presidential race on the ballot this year – and with many of the GOP’s surprise 2021 winners up for re-election – Democrats have an opportunity to turn that losing streak around in a big way. Passaic, Gloucester, Cumberland, Atlantic, and Morris Counties are all set to host competitive contests, with nearly every seat at stake currently held by a Republican.
Passaic (Murphy +4, Biden +17)
Perhaps the single most vulnerable countywide incumbent anywhere in the state is Passaic County Commissioner Nicolino Gallo (R-Totowa), who unseated Commissioner Assad Akhter (D-Paterson) in a 2021 upset.
Passaic County can sometimes present a tricky challenge for Democrats in off-years due to its demographics; Democrats rely on low-propensity Hispanic voters in Paterson and the city of Passaic, while Republicans can count on more consistent turnout from their white suburbanite base. Those disparities helped Gallo prevail in 2021, and they kept countywide races close in both 2022 and 2023 as well.
But in a year like 2024 with a presidential race leading the ticket, that calculus changes significantly; every Democratic presidential nominee since 1996 has carried the county by double digits. That’s bad news for Gallo and good news for Commissioners Sandi Lazzara (D-Little Falls) and John Bartlett (D-Wayne), who narrowly won re-election in 2021 and are up again this year.
It’s still possible that Gallo can eke out a win, especially if Democrats continue to slip among Hispanic voters. Assuming they run for re-election, Bartlett and Lazzara will also have to be careful not to be caught off guard the way they nearly were in 2021.
The partisan math of Passaic County in a presidential election year, though, makes Gallo’s task a difficult one. It may hinge on whether he has been able to build up enough of a political brand to overperform the top of the ticket – following in the footsteps of now-State Sen. Kristin Corrado (R-Totowa), whose re-election as county clerk in 2014 was the Passaic GOP’s most recent countywide win until Gallo.
Gloucester (Ciattarelli +10, Biden +2)
Like in Passaic County, Republicans in Gloucester County scored unexpected wins in 2021 that they’ll now have to defend – and the local Democratic organization isn’t likely to make it easy for them.
When Commissioners Nick DeSilvio (R-Franklin) and Chris Konawel (R-Glassboro) and Sheriff Jonathan Sammons flipped Democratic seats in 2021, it was the first time Gloucester Republicans had won any countywide office since 2010. One of the incumbents they beat, the late Commissioner Robert Damminger (D-Paulsboro), had been in office in South Jersey for 35 years.
But Republican efforts to replicate that success in the two years since have not worked out quite so well. With control of the board of commissioners at stake in both 2022 and 2023 (as well as the surrogate’s and clerk’s offices), Democrats ran involved and expensive campaigns to hold onto power, and they prevailed both times.
Gloucester Republicans, meanwhile, spent much of 2023 descending into bitter infighting between two opposing wings of the party. DeSilvio lost a primary for State Senate and off-the-line candidates won the GOP nomination for countywide offices, creating intraparty wounds that have not been healed.
The big question is whether Democrats can replicate their previous successes this year, when the presidential and Senate races will dominate the political conversation. Without high-profile races at the top of the ballot in 2022 or 2023, Democrats were able to reshape the electorate in their favor using mail-in voting and heavy campaign spending; their chances of defeating DeSilvio, Konawel, and Sammons, meanwhile, may hinge on a presidential contest over which they have little control.
Cumberland (Ciattarelli +12, Biden +6)
Every one of the last three election cycles has brought bad news for Democrats in Cumberland County, who began the Biden era with nine of ten countywide offices and now have just one.
That lone holdout, Democratic County Clerk Celeste Riley, is up this year; so too are Commissioners Tony Romero (R-Vineland) and Joseph Sileo (R-Vineland), who both flipped Democratic-held seats in 2021.
State Sen. Mike Testa (R-Vineland), the Cumberland Republican chair, has clearly proven himself the king of off-year elections; last year, Republicans unseated a six-term Democratic sheriff by double digits. Now he’ll see whether he can work the same magic in a presidential year, when higher voter turnout – particularly in the county’s large Hispanic community – gives Democrats more of a fighting chance.
Even if Democrats won, though, that would still leave them in a 5-2 commission minority, and they’d have to win future off-year contests to regain control of the board. (In fact, absent any special elections prompted by resignations or deaths, the commission majority is not at stake this year in any of New Jersey’s 21 counties.)
Atlantic (Ciattarelli +11, Biden +7)
Back in early 2022, Atlantic Democrats set in motion a plan that may finally come to fruition this year.
Atlantic County elects five of its nine commissioners to district-based seats, and until recently one district had always included Atlantic City and Pleasantville, both of which are majority-minority and heavily Democratic. But during the 2022 reapportionment process, Democrats convinced the redistricting commission tiebreaker that the two towns should be split up, giving nonwhite voters a good chance of electing their candidate of choice in two districts rather than one.
In 2022, 1st district Commissioner Ernest Coursey (D-Atlantic City) held onto his redrawn Atlantic City-based seat by a 53%-47% margin. This year, Democrats will have the opportunity to unseat 2nd district Commissioner Maureen Kern (R-Somers Point), whose district now includes Pleasantville; the new district supported Biden by 15 points in 2020 and Republican Jack Ciattarelli by four points in the 2021 governor’s race.
At-Large Commissioner Frank Balles (R-Egg Harbor Township) will also be up this year and might be vulnerable as well, though Atlantic County’s long history of ticket-splitting should help him. 5th district Commissioner James Bertino (R-Hammonton), who represents the district’s most Republican-leaning towns, likely isn’t in any danger.
If Democrats do win one or more offices, it would be the first step on a long road towards undoing the Atlantic GOP’s recent victories. Republicans flipped the county clerk’s office in 2021 and the sheriff’s office in 2023, and have pushed Democrats to an 8-1 minority on the county commissioner board.
Morris (Ciattarelli +11, Biden +4)
Democrats haven’t won a single countywide office in Morris County – long a redoubt of suburban conservatism – in 50 years. 2024 could be the year that finally changes.
Commissioners John Krickus (R-Washington), Deborah Smith (R-Denville), and Stephen Shaw (R-Mountain Lakes) and Surrogate Heather Darling are all seeking re-election, giving Republicans a slate of experienced vote-getters. But it’s Morris Democrats who have electoral trends going in their favor; Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the county since 1964, and House Democrats have collectively won the county three cycles in a row.
There are signs that the top-of-the-ticket Democratic trend is trickling down to lower-level races. Last year Commissioner Tayfun Selen (R-Chatham) won re-election against Rockaway Councilman Jonathan Sackett 53%-47%, a relatively soft margin in a contest few were paying close attention to.
Democrats had made a serious effort to beat Selen in 2020, falling short by around 13,000 votes. Their hopes could be dashed once again this year – but it’s likely to be an all-out battle either way, especially if Democrats can recruit a solid ticket of candidates from their growing bench of local officeholders.
Other counties?
In theory, Democrats could try to push even deeper into Republican territory like Monmouth and Hunterdon Counties, two longtime GOP strongholds that came within a few percentage points of voting for Biden in 2020. They could also attempt to regain a foothold in tiny, rural Salem County, where Republicans flipped the final Democratic-held commissioner seat in 2022. But all of those are long shots that would likely only enter the conversation if Democrats are having an amazing election night.
As for Republican flip opportunities, outside of Riley in Cumberland County, the pickings are slim.
Until recently, Republicans had total control over county government in Burlington and Somerset Counties. But in the Trump era, the two suburban counties bolted towards Democrats, and now neither has a single Republican countywide official left.
Republicans tried to claw back seats in both counties in 2021, 2022, and 2023 – and failed all three times, though the 2021 Somerset County race was a close one. With Biden likely to win both counties by double digits in the presidential race, it’s difficult to imagine the GOP breaking through this year when they couldn’t before.
In most counties, without a competitive general election to worry about, the real battle for control will happen much earlier. The next few months are the critical period when incumbents decide whether to seek re-election and potential primary challengers emerge; county convention season will begin in February, so parties will have to start sorting out their slates soon.
Some Democratic counties could end up hosting downballot primaries between slates led by the two leading candidates for U.S. Senate, First Lady Tammy Murphy and Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown). Burlington, Mercer, and Somerset Counties in particular stand out as areas where the loser of the organizational line might recruit their own slate of county candidates.
Divisions within Republican organizations like the Sussex GOP and Ocean GOP, meanwhile, could create more intraparty battles for county offices. And the Republican presidential primary, if it’s still ongoing by the time New Jersey’s primary day arrives, may further shake up county races if two candidates – say, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley – each build slates to run alongside them.