Karrow ends bid for 2nd term as Flemington mayor

Flemington Mayor Marcia Karrow has dropped her bid for re-election to a second term, leaving Democrat Susan Engelhardt unopposed in the general election.

Karrow, a former state senator, told party leaders earlier this week that she decided to abandon her campaign, but Republicans couldn’t recruit a replacement before the deadline.

Flemington is a blue town: Kamala Harris won it by 13 points in 2024, and Mikie Sherrill carried it by 27 points in 2025.  In the 2024 congressional race in NJ-7, Sue Altman won Flemington by 13 points against Republican Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield).

Engelhardt was elected to the borough council in 2022 and re-elected last year.  Democrats will also keep two council seats, with incumbent Trent Levitt and Todd Cook, a planning board member, running without Republican opposition; Democratic Councilwoman Adrienne Fusaro is not seeking re-election. The original winner of the Democratic primary, David Norton, withdrew.

The deadline to drop out was August 25, and the deadline to replace her on the ballot was August 27.

Karrow staged a political comeback four years ago after a 13-year absence from public office when she ousted Democratic Mayor Betsy Driver by 73 votes, 52%-48%.

Driver was first elected to the mayor’s office in 2018, unseating Republican incumbent Phil Greiner by just 26 votes. A former journalist and CBS News producer, Driver became the first openly intersex person to win public office in the entire country.

Karrow, 67, had a long political career dating back to 1993, when she won a seat on the Raritan Township Committee. (Raritan Township surrounds Flemington, and the two municipalities share a school district.) She was elected to the State Assembly in 2005 and won a special election convention for the district’s Senate seat in 2009 after Leonard Lance (R-Clinton Township) resigned to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; she defeated Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Oxford), 195-143.   But five months later, Karrow lost the Republican primary to Doherty by 997 votes.

In 2022, Karrow defeated Robert Shore, the former chairman of the Flemington Business Improvement District.

She grew up in Flemington and returned there a few years ago.  Her late father, Sol Karrow, owned a local men’s store and served as a councilman from 1963 to 1980.

Democrats have a 5-0 majority on the council.  In January, local party leader will need to appoint a replacement for Engelhardt when she resigns from the council to become mayor.  That will trigger a special election in 2027 for the remaining thirteen months of her term.