Clinton Mayor Janice Kovach has won her race for Hunterdon County Democratic vice chair, defeating State Committeewoman Karen Becker, 93-73, a 56%-44% margin.
Kovach ran on a slate with Tom Malinowski, a former two-term congressman who won the county chairman post earlier this afternoon in a 2-1 landslide against Becker, 112-54.
After her loss, Becker was nominated to take on Kovach. Her initial running mate, Ben Valliere, dropped out of the race.
The outgoing Democratic county chair, Arlene Quinones Perez, had rejected a motion to allow each slate to receive one vote.
After the vote, the Becker forces didn’t challenge Michael Drulis for treasurer; Drulis, the New Brunswick city administrator and the husband of Assemblywoman Mitchelle Drulis (D-Raritan), was running on the Malinowski slate. There was no nomination for Becker’s running mate, Beverly Entin.
In the race for treasurer, Malinowski’s candidate, Michele Liebtag, the political director of CWA Local 1036, defeated 2021 Assembly candidate Guy Citron, 109-48. Citron replaces Dorothy Dawood, who had been campaigning for secretary as an ally of Becker.
Seven members of Malinowski’s at-large for executive board seats were also elected: former Flemington Mayor Betsy Driver; East Amwell Mayor Dante DiPirro, former Assembly candidate Hope Kaufman, Dr. Kira Lawrence, Stephen Leftly, Christina Russoniello, and Kiely Williams-Cox.
Kovach has consistently won lopsided victories for mayor in a Republican-leaning town; emptying Main Street garbage cans on weekends herself has made her a sort of Northwest Jersey version of Brian Stack.
A former president of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, Kovach was the Democratic nominee for Congress against Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton Township) in 2014. Murphy nominated her to the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission and came to Clinton to swear her in after her last re-election.
Clinton has roughly the same number of Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters. Last year, Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) won the town by six percentage points against Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) in the 7th district congressional race. Jack Ciattarelli carried Clinton by three points against Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021, and Joe Biden won it by seven points in 2020.