By Donald Gilpin

Despite only a limited number of races in contention, more than 4,000 Princeton voters went to the polls on Tuesday, June 8, to support their candidates for nomination to Princeton Council, state Senate, New Jersey General Assembly, governor, and more in the 2021 New Jersey primary election.

In the contest for two seats on Princeton Council, Democrats Eve Niedergang, an incumbent running for her second three-year term, and Leighton Newlin, a longtime community leader, were running unopposed and will represent the Democrats on the November 2 ballot.  No Republicans joined the primary race, and there will be no opposition for Niedergang and Newlin in the fall.

In the primary vote for the New Jersey State seat for the 16th Legislative District, currently held by Christopher “Kip” Bateman who will step down at the end of the year, Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker ran unopposed for the Democrats and will face off against former Republican Congressman Mike Pappas in the general election in November.   

Pappas handily defeated Jeffrey Grant, an engineer, with an unofficial tally of 6,837 votes (about 65 percent) to 3,726 (about 35 percent) for Grant. 

In the contest for two seats in the New Jersey General Assembly for the 16th District, which includes parts of Mercer, Hunterdon, Middlesex, and Somerset counties, Democrats chose incumbent Roy Freiman with 42 percent of the vote and new candidate Sadaf Jaffer with 44 percent, over Faris Zwirahn with 14 percent.   

Joseph A. Lukac, III and Vincent Panico, running unopposed in the Republican primary, will face the two Democratic nominees in the November general election for the 16th District of the New Jersey General Assembly.

In the primary election for New Jersey governor, incumbent Phil Murphy, seeking his second term, was unopposed and will represent the Democrats on the November 2 ballot. Facing Murphy in the general election will be former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who prevailed over three Republican opponents, unofficially winning a total of 158,301 votes (almost 50 percent) to 83,067 for second-place finisher Philip Rizzo, 68,900 for Hirsh V. Singh, and 10,347 for Brian D. Levine.

The November contest for Mercer County surrogate will pit Diane Gerofsky, who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination, against Republican Douglas E. Miles, who defeated Richard J. LaRossa in the Republican primary.

In the election for three positions on the Board of Mercer County Commissioners, Samuel Frisby, Kristin McLaughlin, and Terrance Stokes, who ran unopposed in the primary, will represent the Democrats on the November 2 ballot. They will be running against Richard M. Balgowan, Michael Chianese, and Andrew J. Kotula, Jr, three Republican candidates who won the most votes in a field of six in the June 8 primary.

Unlike last year’s elections which were mostly by mail-in ballot, most of the votes this year were in-person. The elections will be official when certified by the Mercer County Clerk by June 22.