Morris County Democrats held their convention on Saturday without picking candidates to run for county clerk or for the legislature in the 26th district.
But Democrats still have a week to recruit someone to run against Republican County Clerk Ann Grossi (R-Parsippany), or in the heavily Republican 26th, where State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Montville), and Assemblymen Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) and Brian Bergen R-Denville) have GOP primary opponents.
In the race for one county commissioner seat, Democrats found a potentially strong candidate in Jonathan Sackett, a veteran Rockaway Township councilman who won 46% of the vote as a candidate for mayor in a solidly Republican municipality last year.
Sackett wants to take on incumbent Tayfun Selen (R-Chatham Township). It’s still not clear if Selen will face a primary fight with Paul DeGroot, the 2022 Republican candidate for congress in New Jersey’s 11th district. Selen defeated DeGroot at the Morris GOP convention.
Democrats have not won a countywide election in Morris County since 1973, when 30-year-old Douglas Romaine unseated incumbent James Plante by about 400 votes in the anti-Republican Watergate wave election that year. Morris County has not had a Democratic county clerk since before the Civil War.
Grossi was re-elected in 2018 with 54% of the vote.
RELATED ARTICLES
-
January 30, 2020 -
March 5, 2021 -
April 1, 2019