(Updated) Liz Graner elected Somerset County Commissioner

Update at 6:38 PM: Elizabeth Graner won by acclamation after Daryl Eisenberg Knegten dropped out of the race.  She will serve as an interim Somerset County Commissioner and become the Democratic nominee for an unexpired term in November 2025. 

The race to fill an open Somerset County Commissioner seat will be decided tonight when former Bernards Township Democratic Municipal Chair Elizabeth Graner faces off against former Watchung Councilwoman Daryl Eisenberg Knegten at a special meeting of the Democratic county committee.

The vote will seat an interim replacement for Douglas Singleterry, who resigned his county commissioner seat earlier this month to become a Superior Court Judge, as well as a vote to nominate a candidate to run in a November special election for the remaining thirteen months of Singleterry’s term.

Former Hillsborough Township Committeeman Jeffrey Wright has withdrawn from the race.

Republicans will hold a screening committee meeting tonight to pick a general election candidate.   The front-runner is Michelle Mayorga, a North Plainfield school board member who recently changed her voter registration from unaffiliated to Republican.  An Ecuadorian American, Mayorga is a victim of domestic violence and the mother of a child with autism who founded a non-profit organization to help special needs children.

In a race for a three-year term, Democratic incumbent Melonie Marano faces Republican Nick Cuozzo, a Bernards Township planning board member who lost a county commissioner bid last year

With Somerset County favorite son Jack Ciattarelli at the top of the ticket in the governor’s race, this year may present Republicans with their best shot at regaining some countywide offices; Democrats are riding a seven-year winning streak after capturing the county clerk post in 2017 and then flipping all five county commissioner seats, the sheriff and the surrogate since 2018.

In 2021, Gov. Phil Murphy carried Somerset by 4,321 votes (51.5% to 47.7%) over Ciattarelli; Democratic County Commissioner Sara Sooy was re-elected by 842 votes against Republican Michael Kirsh, a  Bridgewater councilman.

Graner lost bids for a State Assembly seat in 2021 and 2023 – she came within 2,503 votes of Assemblywoman Michele Matsikoudis (R-New Providence) — and for Bernards Township Committee in 2024.   Eisenberg Knegten lost her 2021 re-election bid by 242 votes.

Two-term Democratic Sheriff Darrin Russo faces Republican Michael Manochio, a former Union County homicide detective. Surrogate Bernice “Tina” Jalloh, a Democrat, faces Peapack-Gladstone Council President John Sweeney, a Republican.