Warehouse project leads to tight race in West Windsor

Just 83 votes separate the top vote-getter and the sixth-place finisher in the race for three seats on the West Windsor Township Council, with 246 ballots still uncounted in last week’s non-partisan municipal election fought on development issues that remain too close to call.

Council President Andrea Sue Mandel leads with 2,676 votes, followed by incumbent Sonia Gawas with 2,659.  Dan Weiss, who headed the challenger slate opposed to a plan to build 5.5 million square feet of warehouses, is in third place with 2,655.

Weiss’s running mates on the “Your New Town Council” slate, are running just narrowly behind: Stacey Fox has 2,648 votes, which puts her 28 behind Mandel, 11 votes behind Gawas, and 7 behind Weiss; and Ben Finkelstein has received 2,642 votes.

Councilman Michael Ray Stevens, who ran on the “Community Leaders for West Windsor” ticket, has 2,592 votes and trails Weiss by 63 votes.

Vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by 8 PM on Election Day can still be counted if they arrive at the Mercer County Board of Elections by the close of business on November 13.

There are 29 VBMs and 217 provisionals that have still not been tallied.  Provisional ballots won’t be counted until the mail-in ballot deadline has passed.   The deadline to cure correctible defects to vote-by-mail ballots is on November 18.

The challenger slate, which opposed high-profile development projects like Bridge Point 8, had the support of the Mercer County Democratic leadership, with help coming from high-profile Democrats: East Windsor Mayor and Mercer County Democratic Chair Janice Mironov; Assemblyman and County Executive candidate Dan Benson (D-Hamilton); Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown); State Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Lawrence); and Assemblyman Anthony Verrelli (D-Hopewell).

Local development issues led to GOP upsets in other train station towns, including Millburn, Summit, Westfield — possibly one seat in Cranford.

Mandel, Gawas, and Stevens were elected to the council in 2019.

Weiss, a Microsoft executive, is president of the West Windsor Democratic Club.  Fox is a former Miss New Jersey and the executive director of the Mercer County Defense League, a grassroots environmental group.  Finkelstein is a teacher.