The story of New Jersey politics is often best told through its counties. While electoral results of most counties are predictable from months out, a handful of the Garden State’s could flip one direction or the other. This analysis of Gloucester County is the first in a series focusing on the counties in play.
Gloucester County is among the flippiest New Jersey counties: The South Jersey county voted for Barack Obama in 2012, Donald Trump in 2016, and Joe Biden in 2020.
The inverse happened for recent gubernatorial elections: Gloucester went for Chris Christie during his dominant 2013 reelection bid, Phil Murphy in 2017, and Jack Ciattarelli in 2021.
In a state where most elections are noncompetitive, Gloucester’s swinginess is truly special. Yet, despite those flips, Democrats have dominated county governance since 2010. County-level Republicans found victory once in the last 13 years, when a GOP slate rode the coattails of Jack Ciattarelli to victory in 2021.
Democrats today control the county commission 5-2, but the commission’s two Republican incumbents are up for re-election, giving Democrats a chance to return to unanimity.
Nick DeSilvio (R-Franklin) and Chris Konawel (R-Glassboro) initially flipped Democratic seats in 2021 with a tailwind Jack Ciattarrelli’s tough but unsuccessful gubernatorial run. The same goes for Sheriff Jonathan Sammons, who unseated Democratic Sheriff Carmel Morina that year.
Those 2021 victories were a landmark for Gloucester Republicans: The triumphs were the first countywide GOP wins since 2010.
After their 2021 upset, Republicans thought they could take control of county government in 2022, but that didn’t happen. Democrats amped up their campaign apparatus, focused heavily on vote-by-mail, raised a bunch of money, and held on. Denice DiCarlo, who lost in 2021 and then was appointed to fill another seat in 2022, beat former Harrison Committeeman Adam Wingate by 2,104 votes.
A second shot at control was similarly unsuccessful in 2023. Democrats moved the ball forward, and Republicans, busy fighting each other in a local GOP civil war, moved backwards.
Morina, the former sheriff, is back on the ballot for a rematch with Sammons. Morina beat Sammons in 2018 by a healthy 17,000-vote margin, but Sammons returned three years later to become the county’s first Black sheriff with a 1,500-vote victory.
Four-term Clayton Mayor Tom Bianco (D) and Monroe Township Councilman Don Heverly (D), an IBEW union leader, meanwhile, have the task of returning the commission to full Democratic control.
DeSilvio, a Navy veteran and union electrician, has proven to be the slightly more successful Republican. DeSilvio earned almost 1,000 more votes than Konawel in the 2021 general election and beat Konawel by about 200 in this year’s primary.
Ticket-splitting is especially relevant in Gloucester County, which voted for Republicans several times on the state and federal level in the 2010s but unyieldingly elected county Democrats. In addition to voting for Christie in 2013 and Trump in 2016, Gloucester wound in the column of Bob Hugin in the 2018 Senate election.
Still, Gloucester Democrats held strong. When Trump beat Hillary Clinton by less than a thousand votes (or half a percent) in 2016, Democratic commission candidates still found victory lane with an almost 10,000-vote victory.
Now, with Donald Trump back at the top of the ballot, Gloucester is likely to come down to the wire again. The key for Democrats: Even if Trump wins Gloucester again, can they convince enough voters to split their ticket?