Incumbent Mercer commissioners will share endorsement with challenger

Just two Mercer County commissioner seats are up for grabs this year, but a quirk in the math meant Mercer County Democrats endorsed three candidates for the Board; it’ll be up to the voters to winnow down the field.

The Democrats endorsed two incumbents, Lucylle Walter (D-Ewing) and John Cimino (D-Hamilton), as well as a challenger, Nakia White Barr, a former assistant vice president at Princeton University. 

Walter garnered 272 votes, Cimino received 255, and Barr got 200 votes. The Mercer Democratic bylaws require endorsements to go to candidates who receive more than 50% of the vote. According to Mercer Democratic Chairperson Janice Mironov, the percentage totals are determined by dividing by the number of ballots cast (389) rather than total votes cast (727).

That means that even Barr, despite finishing third, got a percentage of 51.4% (200 divided by 389), and therefore an endorsement.

Barr, until recently the assistant vice president for institutional affairs at Princeton University and a former municipal prosecutor in Trenton, had not drawn much media attention prior to today. Behind the scenes, however, she’s spent the last several months aggressively working to secure support in her first bid for public office.

Cimino was first elected to the county freeholder board in 2008, defeating incumbent Freeholder Tony Mack (D-Trenton) at both that year’s county convention and the Democratic primary a few months later. Walter has had an even longer tenure on the board, first winning her seat in 1999.

A fourth candidate, Henggao Cai, had signed up to ask for the endorsement, but Mironov said he did not tap two committeemembers to advance his candidacy, and thus did not make the ballot.

The disparity between youth and experience was the central issue during the candidates’ short speeches before the delegates.

Cimino said “experience matters,” and Walter told the Democrats that now “is not the time for on-the-job training.” Barr, meanwhile, said it was time for “fresh perspectives” on the Board, especially in terms of including young people in politics.

“It’s good for democracy,” Barr said. “It’s good for us as a party.”