70K Votes Remain to be Counted in LD25 Contest

Bucco

Any celebration can wait. It’s time for patience in Morris County.

That was this morning’s take of Chip Robinson, the county’s Democratic chair.

Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday mentioned how well Democrats were doing in two Morris races – two Legislative seats in District 25 and one freeholder seat.

We are talking about only two seats in a Democratic-controlled Legislature and a mere one freeholder spot, but greater political significance is involved.

In the recorded history of Morris County – a pretty long time – there has been only one freeholder and that came during Watergate.

There have been occasional Democratic legislators; some may recall Gordon MacInnes. But by and large, the county’s legislative delegation has been all-Republican.

That’s why Murphy, who enjoys trumpeting any sign of Democratic success in GOP-terrain, specifically brought up Legislative candidates Rupande Mehta (senate) and Darcy Draeger (assembly) and freeholder candidate Cary Amaro.

All were leading in their respective races Tuesday night and as of Thursday morning, they are still leading.

But there is a long way to go. An estimated 70,000 ballots remain to be counted in the Legislative race and more than 100,000 are still outstanding county-wide in the freeholder race.

Just for the record, Mehta is about 1,000 votes ahead of incumbent Republican Sen. Anthony M. Bucco, and Draeger is about 2,500 votes ahead of Assemblywoman Aura Dunn.

Amaro leads GOP freeholder Tayfun Selen by about 8,000 votes.

Joe Biden was running 19,000 votes ahead of Donald Trump in Morris. It’s true that Democrats  recently have done better in Morris and it’s also true that Trump is unpopular throughout New Jersey. Still, you have to expect Biden’s margin to drop as more votes are counted.

And that is why Robinson is putting any celebration on hold.

“It is very important that we all remain patient and allow for the remaining ballots to be counted in our county,” Robinson said in a missive sent today to party supporters. He did say that he is “cautiously optimistic” that party candidates will end up doing “very well.”

The unknown is when that “end” will actually arrive.

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