By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Updated 3:52 p.m.
If the final count holds, Save Jerseyans, Republicans Michael Whelan has defeated incumbent Democratic Michael DuPont in Red Bank, putting an exclamation mark at the end of one of last Tuesday’s closer municipal races and giving the Red Bank Republican Party control of borough council for the first time since 1989.
And “close” is the operative word.
Whelan led DuPont by just 4 votes after the machine ballots were counted; DuPont’s net gain after provisionals were counted was +1 vote for a Whelan victory margin of 3 votes. Republican Mark Taylor, who was the biggest winner on Tuesday with 1,029 votes, ended up with 4 more votes from provisional ballots while Democrat Michael Ballard added another 9 to his 925 machine ballot total to finish fourth.
The Democrats will, however, request a recount according to MoreMonmouthMusings.
If the results hold as-is, Whelan and Taylor would join Republicans Cindy Burnham and Linda Schwabenebaur to form a 4-2 council majority in a town that Barack Obama carried with 63.2% of the vote in 2012. Republicans were nevertheless expected to win this year after the local Democrats ran into major ticket trouble but, according to the folks on the ground, the surprise result of the LD11 Assembly contest likely impacted the turnout in Red Bank, which sits in the district, contributing to a closer-than-expected race.
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Let’s hope Middlesex Borough can accomplish that today also.