Julia Fahl, a 27-year-old political fundraiser making her first bid for public office, ousted Lambertville mayor David DelVecchio – in office for 27 years – in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
Fahl won by 145 votes, 757 to 631 – a decisive 55%-45% win in the small but prestigious town of just less than 4,000 people. She ran a mostly positive campaign calling for new ideas and different approaches to local issues.
DelVecchio is the second longtime incumbent mayor to lose this cycle: in March, Long Branch mayor Adam Schneider lost his bid for re-election after 28 years in office.
Once a rising Democratic star in a heavily Republican county. DelVecchio won 47% of the vote in a bid for an open congressional seat in 1996 and is a former Hunterdon County Democratic chairman.
Fahl worked as a fundraiser for Phil Murphy’s 2017 gubernatorial campaign. Her campaign for mayor was managed by her wife, Kari Osmond, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s district director and a former chief of staff to Assemblyman Reed Gusciora.
Lambertville is heavily Democratic and Fahl has no Republican opponent in the November general election.