Tom Malinowski already has represented a bit of Morris County in Congress. That would be CD-7, which now covers at least parts of 12 towns in the southern and western part of Morris.
That type of familiarity apparently breeds support.

Morris County Democrats have voted to back Malinowski's return to the House in an upcoming special election to replace Mikie Sherrill in CD-11.

County committee members convened Sunday. They heard from all 12 candidates - once again for many of them - and then voted in a ranked choice system.

Turns out it was not much of a contest.

Malinowski led in every round of the vote and when it ended, he had support of about 52 percent - a pretty good number in a 12-person field.

Brendan Gill was second with almost 30 percent and Analilia Mejia was third with about 18 percent.

Many observers see this as a race between Malinowski and Gill and that's how the Morris County Committee saw it.

The results have to be bad news for two of the Morris candidates in the race - Jeff Grayzel, the deputy mayor of Morris Township, and Justin Strickland, a councilman in Chatham Borough.

Both failed to get any traction.

Malinowski does not live in CD-11, although he has said he plans to move there.

Residency, however, did not seem to be an issue for the 461 Dems who voted.