Hillside Mayor Dahlia Vertreese is currently just above the threshold required to avoid a runoff election, at 50.01% of the vote; her two opponents, Councilwoman Nancy Mondella and Councilwoman Andrea Hyatt, trail her with 31.9% and 17.9% of the vote, respectively.
Vertreese, a former school board president, was elected in 2017 by just 28 votes over Councilman Jorge Batista. Despite her incumbency this year, most Union County Democrats backed Mondella to unseat her.
The mayoral and council races were also embroiled in a complicated court battle earlier this year, in which Vertreese won the right to be bracketed with her chosen council slate.
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