Democrats hold Mercer clerkship, commission seats

Democrat Paula Sollami Covello easily captured her fifth five-year term as Mercer County Clerk, while two incumbent County Commissioners, Cathleen Lewis and Nina Melker sailed to comfortable re-election tonight in a solidly Democratic county.

Sollami Covello defeated Republican Shaolin Brown in a 73%-27% finish. Lewis and Melker beat Republicans Alexander DiFalco, the vice chair of the Mercer Young Republicans, and Daniel Hanley, a financial planner, by roughly 45,000 votes.

Republicans no longer represent any portion of the county in Congress or the state legislature; Democrats have won every countywide race for the last two dozen years; and no Republicans hold any partisan municipal offices.

Sollami Covello’s 237-vote victory over GOP County Clerk Cathy DiCostanzo in 2005 marked the end of any Republican presence in Mercer countywide office.