Moench wins second term as Bridgewater mayor by wide margin; GOP flips Somerville mayor post

Matt Moench has now beaten Dan Hayes twice in races for mayor of Bridgewater: the first time from off-the-line in a Republican primary four years ago, and on Tuesday, in a decisive general election victory after Hayes switched parties.

Moench won his second term by a 56%-44% margin, beating Hayes in all but three districts in Bridgewater, the largest municipality in Somerset County.   He’s holding a 1,463-vote lead.

Two Republican council candidates running with Moench also won by wide margins: Timothy Ring and Michael Kirsch defeated Democrats Marguerite Baranowski and Saad Toor.   Toor had been his party’s mayoral candidate, but switched to a council race to make room for Hayes.

In 2019, Moench, then the council president, took out Hayes with 63% of the vote, and then won the general election by seventeen points.

Republicans also scored a huge win in Somerville, where Brian Gallagher, a former mayor and Somerset County freeholder, has returned to public office.  He defeated Democrat Dennis Sullivan by a ten-point margin to become mayor of a blue town that also held two Democratic seats on the borough council.

In Franklin, Mayor Philip Kramer thwarted a comeback bid by Brian D. Levine, a former three-term mayor and Somerset County freeholder.  He leads by a 2-1 margin.

Democrat Dominic Longo holds a scant 48-vote lead over GOP incumbent David Morris in the Bound Brook mayoral race.  Morris became mayor after Bob Fazen resigned last year.  Longo is a sitting councilman and had been elected as a Republican.

But Republican challengers Glen Rossi (699) and Mark Speed (675) narrowly lead two Democratic incumbents, Shawn Guerra (649) and Abel Gomez (636) in the race for two borough council seats.

Manville Mayor Richard Onderko, a Republican running as an independent, was re-elected by a 47%-28% margin against GOP Councilman Joseph Lukac; Democrat Roberta Walters finished third with 25%.

In a race for two borough council seats, independent Jade Nicolle Puia appears to have won with 748 votes; another independent, Dayna Camacho, holds a narrower 81-vote lead over Republican Christina Lazzeri.  Another Republican, Jeoffrey Puia, trails his running mate by 30 votes, followed by two Democrats who are 32 and 51 votes behind him, respectively.

In Hillsborough, Republicans Catherine Payne (5,428) and Jim Ruh (5,421) hold a narrow 87-vote lead over Democrat Samantha Hand (5,334) in a race for two township committee seats; another Democrat, Ronald Yoder (5,170) lost.

Republicans hold a narrow lead for two township committee seats in Bernards, and won local races in Bedminster, Branchburg, Green Brook, Raritan, Warren and Watchung.

Democrats scored wins in Bernardsville, Montgomery, Rocky Hill (against an independent),

Neither party nominated candidates in Millstone, where 30 write-in votes will determine who wins two borough council seats.