Ex-Morris freeholder seeking office in Wyoming

A former Morris County freeholder is seeking a political comeback as a candidate for an elected prosecutor position in Wyoming.

Hank Lyon announced that he will run for Campbell County Attorney; Campbell County has a population of about 47,000, and while it’s the third-largest county in Wyoming, in New Jersey terms, it’s about the size of South Brunswick.

In 2011, at age 23, Lyon challenged four-term Freeholder Margaret Nordstrom in the Republican primary.  On election night, Lyon led Nordstrom by 13 votes out of over 24,000 cast; a hand recount reduced his lead to just six.

Nordstrom contested the results, alleging that some Morris residents were illegally prevented from voting, that seven voters may have cast both absentee and provisional ballots, and that there were a dozen absentee ballots where the handwriting didn’t match the voter registration. Nordstrom later claimed Lyon took an illegal $16,000 loan from his father to finance his campaign.

On September 14, three months after the primary, Superior Court Judge Thomas Weisenbeck found at least 32 illegal votes, found that the contribution from Lyon’s father was illegal, and invalidated the results of the primary election, and gave the Morris County Republican Committee three days to pick a new candidate.

The county committee picked Nordstrom by just five votes, 212-208.  She easily won the general election and was sworn in to a fifth term in January 2012.

(A Tom Moran editorial in the Star-Ledger opined that Lyon should not be permitted to run for office because of the campaign finance question – “If you want to run for office, you have to know the rules and play by them” — but four days later, the same newspaper’s editorial board stated that Carl Lewis, a Democratic candidate for State Senate in Burlington County, should be allowed to run even though he didn’t meet the state’s residency requirement – “Let the voters decide Lewis’ legitimacy,” Moran wrote.)

In February, a state appellate court sided with Lyon and ruled that Weisenbeck lacked the legal authority to void the primary election results on the basis of unproven claims of voting irregularities and a possible ELEC violation.  The appellate judges said Weisenbeck’s decision was “incorrect and legally unsustainable” and ordered Nordstrom’s immediate removal from office.

In a special election convention in March 2012, Lyon defeated perennial candidate Edward France by a 265-40 vote.

Still, Lyon was forced to run in the 2012 primary and general elections for a two-year term.  He was unopposed for the GOP nomination and easily won the general election.  He was re-elected without opposition in 2014.

Lyon gave up his freeholder seat in 2017 to challenge Assemblywoman BettyLou DeCroce (R-Parsippany) in the Republican primary.  He lost by 1,889 votes.  Lyon was briefly a candidate for freeholder in 2018 but dropped out of the race.

Nordstrom landed on her feet: Gov. Chris Christie gave her a job as executive dirctor of the New Jersey Highlands Council; after he left office, she spent five years as the Chester borough administrator.

Records show that Lyon was admitted to the Wyoming Bar in April 2024,  He graduated from Emory Law School in 2023.

The incumbent county attorney, Nathan Henkes, is not seeking re-election.  Henkes had ousted a Republican incumbent in the 2022 primary by a wide margin.

The Wyoming primary election is August 18.  Campbell County is staunchly Republican; Donald Trump carried it in 2024 with 87%.

New Jerseyans have revived their political careers in other states before.

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey grew up in Edison and sought the Republican nomination for Congress in New Jersey’s 7th district in 2000.  In a race for an open House seat – Bob Franks (R-New Providence) was running for U.S. Senate, Morrisey finished last in a four-candidate race with 9% of the vote against the winner, Mike Ferguson.

Morrisey was elected attorney general of West Virginia in 2012, narrowly lost a race for U.S. Senate in 2018 against Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, and was elected governor in 2024.