TRENTON, N.J. – He trailed by over 13,000 votes at last count, but Hirsh Singh says he’s not conceding the New Jersey GOP Senate primary… at least for about two weeks.
“1.3 Million Republicans had the right to vote in this primary. Only 253k have been counted so far. In 2016 we saw 477k votes. We don’t know how many voted. Must wait until July 23rd,” Singh tweeted on Saturday, sharing a link to a pro-Singh political website. “This unprecedented election does not follow traditional trends.”
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The Associated Press called the race for Singh’s opponent Rik Mehta on Friday after waiting almost seventy-two hours after Election Day wrapped up to evaluate the vote totals and trends.
Singh’s remaining mathematical path is next to impossible. While thousands of ballots may remain outstanding due to the novel nature of a mostly vote-by-mail primary, Singh would need to win a hugely disproportionate number of the remaining ballots to overcome Mehta’s 13,000 vote statewide victory margin and score an upset.
“Lots of votes still to be counted, but there is no trend to suggest a different outcome,” New Jersey Globe editor David Wildstein opined over the weekend, zeroing in on Cumberland County (one of four counties where Singh had the line). “Example: as more votes were counted in Cumberland, Hirsh Singh added 334 votes to his total, but his total percentage in the county went from 63.98% to 63.40%.”
Some Republican operatives and activists grumbled that Singh campaign’s defiance is reminsicent of Stacey Abrams’s infamous refusal to concede the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial contest.
This is Singh’s third failed attempt for high office, having run unsuccessfully for governor in 2017 and the 2nd Congressional District GOP nomination in 2018.
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