Walter and Cimino face Dem convention challenger in Mercer

Two Mercer County Commissioners will face a challenge tomorrow night when they seek the endorsement of the Democratic county convention in their bids for re-election.

The incumbents, Lucylle Walter and John Cimino, face challenges from Nakia White Barr, a former assistant vice president at Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate who served as an assistant Trenton city attorney while Douglas Palmer was mayor.

Also seeking party support is Henggao Cai of East Windsor.

White Barr spent more than three years as Trenton’s chief municipal prosecutor before a stint as the associate general counsel and secretary of the Board of Trustees at Michigan State University.  At Princeton, she ran the office of institutional affairs.

The last time an incumbent lost a Mercer Democratic convention was in 2021, after a group of reformers won a vote to change party rules, forcing incumbents to compete for party support rather than be automatically endorsed.  That led to Ann Cannon, a nine-term incumbent, losing the convention to Terrance Stokes on the third ballot.

A former Ewing school board member and a special education teacher, Walter won a special election convention for the Mercer County Freeholder in October 1998 after Paul Sigmund resigned to take a private-sector job in California.   She won by just two votes, 91-89, against Wendy Benchley, a former freeholder and Princeton Borough councilwoman whose late husband, Peter Benchley, wrote the best-selling novel Jaws.

Walter was elected in 1999 and re-elected in 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020, and 2023.  She had previously sought part support for freeholder in 1997 when James McManimon gave up his seat to run for Assembly.  Brian Hughes, who later served as county executive, was endorsed by Mercer Democrats; McManimon lost the Assembly endorsement to now-Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing).

A former Hamilton Planning Board chairman, Cimino was elected to the freeholder board in 2008.  He beat four-term incumbent Tony Mack at the Mercer County Democratic convention that year and then defeated Mack again in the Democratic primary.  Mack later became mayor of Trenton before his conviction on federal bribery, extortion, fraud, and money laundering charges.

Cimino has been re-elected four times.  His father, Skip Cimino, is a former assemblyman who served in Gov. Jim Florio’s cabinet.

Democrats have a 7-0 majority on the Board of County Commissioners, and Republicans haven’t won a countywide race in Mercer County in over 25 years.