The road to a politically competitive Morris County could be paved through Randolph, once a solid, reliable Republican municipality – the third largest in the county – that has voted Democratic at the top of the ticket in recent years.
The unexpected resignation of a GOP councilwoman in May has triggered a special election that puts four of the seven seats on the all-Republican township council up for grabs – a control election that offers Democrats their best shot at winning a majority since the 1970s.
Three incumbents are seeking re-election: Mayor Christine Carey, Deputy Mayor Joe Hathaway, and Councilwoman Joanne Veech. They face Democrats Sandra Fey, Josie Scanlon, and Jonathan Torres. In the race for Marie Potter’s unexpired term, interim Republican Councilwoman Denise Thornton faces Democrat William Ball.
As Democrats eye their first countywide office win in 51 years – and watch their potential viability in next year’s Assembly contests – flipping a municipality like Randolph could be pivotal.
Democrats haven’t had a majority in Randolph since the early 1970s. Intermittently, they’ve won some seats; the last Democrat was Jon Huston, who retired in 2006, fifteen years after ousting incumbent Sherry Ayache by about 270 votes in 1991 despite a Republican wave election that year.
Randolph was Republican enough for John McCain and Mitt Romney to carry the township over Barack Obama. But in 2016, Hillary Clinton carried Randolph by 817 votes against Donald Trump, while Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Harding) took it by 2,802. Republican Kim Guadagno won Randolph by 28 votes in the 2017 governor’s race.
By 2018, Randolph began to turn purple. After Frelinghuysen declined to seek re-election, Democrat Mikie Sherrill won Randolph by 1,871 votes (58%), while GOP U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin carried it by just 178 votes against incumbent Bob Menendez. Randolph went Republican in the county clerk’s race by 164, but all three Democratic freeholder candidates carried the township, albeit narrowly. The GOP swept four council seats at the municipal level, with 367 votes separating the fourth and fifth-place finishers.
Democrats Lisa Bhimani (2,693) and Republican Anthony M. Bucco (2,619) won Randolph, although another Democrat, Darcy Draeger, finished just six votes behind Bucco. The freeholder race was close: Randolph went for two Republicans and a Democrat, with 90 votes separating the first-place finisher from number six.
With 77% voter turnout, Randolph voters were mostly purple ticket splitters in 2020: Joe Biden carried the township by 2,282 (56%) against Trump, U.S. Senator Cory Booker received 54%, a 1,465-vote win, and Sherrill won by 1,746 votes (54%). But in a special election for the State Senate, Bucco took Randolph by 900 votes; in a special for Bucco’s Assembly seat, Republican Aura Dunn outpolled Draeger in Randolph by 371 votes. Randolph went Democratic in the freeholder race by 388 votes, but GOP candidates for township council – the same seats that are up this year – won by overwhelming margins, the closest being 1,351 votes.
Ticket splitting continued in 2021, with Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy eking out a 135-vote win in Randolph. Randolph went Republican for State Senate; Bucco won by 838 votes. In the Assembly race, Dunn won by 464 and Brian Bergen by 395. The three incumbent Republican county commissioners – Deborah Smith, John Krickus, and Stephen Shaw – won easily.
There were more split tickets in 2022. Sherrill won by 1,556 votes (57%), but Republican county commissioner candidates carried the township by margins of 121 to 177 votes. Four GOP council candidates ran unopposed for four-year terms, but a special election for the unexpired term of Councilman Lance Tkacs was closer.
Hathaway had been appointed in May to replace Tkacs; in November, he raced Torres, a physician and scout leader. Hathaway won by 281 votes, 52%-48%.
Last year, Randolph went all blue, narrowly voting for Democratic legislative candidates: Bucco lost the township by 24 votes, and Democratic Assembly candidates Torres (2,710) and Diane Salvatore (2,692) outpolled incumbents Aura Dunn (2,586) and Christian Barranco (2,462). In the county commissioner race, Democrat Jonathan Sackett carried Randolph by 284 votes against GOP incumbent Tayfun Selen.
Torres is now making his third bid for office, and so far, he’s 1-1 in Randolph.
Hathaway attended Yale on a football scholarship and then got a job working on Gov. Chris Christie’s advance staff. He omits Christie’s name from his biography but contributed $1,000 to his 2024 presidential campaign.
An attorney and an executive at WebMD, Carey served three terms on the school board before winning a council seat in 2012. Veech, who was picked to fill a vacant council seat in 2011, served on the local zoning board for over ten years; she’s retired from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Thornton is a detective captain for the Morris County Sherriff’s Department and previously served as library board president.
Scanlan, a partner at Marshall Dennehey, a 500-lawyer firm, founded KINDeR, a non-profit that offers inclusive programs for neurodivergent and disabled residents.
A retired IT executive, Fey led the Red Cross Veterans Transportation Program.
Ball volunteers as a track and basketball coach and is a church choir member. He works in the film and television industry as a technical director.