Mercer County Republicans are getting crushed everywhere
If you’re a registered Republican in Mercer County — like me, for the record, although I’ve been meaning to declare my independence since Trump — things aren’t looking particularly rosy.
Actually, let’s start with President Donald Trump. You ask me, he cost the Republicans their stranglehold in Hamilton. I truly believe this. The Hamilton GOP has controlled the mayor’s office and town council since 2007. A full decade of GOP rule. And I don’t think anyone was expecting a clean sweep for the Democrats in Hamilton Tuesday night.
But that’s exactly what happened. Anthony Carabelli Jr., Jeff Martin, and Rick Tighe swept out longtime councilman Dennis Pone, along with Dina Thornton and former Trenton councilman Gino Melone, and it wasn’t particularly close
The Trump effect was on display in Virginia; why not here? Especially considering Mayor Kelly Yaede was an early and vocal supporter of Trump on the campaign trail.
And if you’re not buying this line of thinking, then the vote was against Yaede. She attached her name to the Republicans running in town, referring to them as the “Yaede Team.”
So either the vote was against Yaede or against Trump. Either way, it throws Yaede’s mayoral future in doubt, as nothing materially changed in Hamilton in the last few years. If anything — from this observer — the township seemed to moving in the right direction. But the voters of Hamilton — a group who is known to zig when others are zagging — wanted a change.
And while I’m not going to start handicapping the 2019 Hamilton mayoral race … eh, what the hell. I’ll handicap it. Gotta think Carabelli is already thinking about challenging her. He’s got the pedigree for it.
By the way, it’s not just Hamilton. The entire county is Democrat. From the top on down. County Executive Brian Hughes? Democrat. The seven-member Freeholder board? Democrat. Then add up the numbers of locally elected officials and this is the score: It’s 64-9 in favor of the Democrats. This doesn’t take into account Trenton, West Windsor and Robbinsville, as they have nonpartisan elections, but if they counted, the number would be even more lopsided.
Mercer County is blue. Very, very blue. Midnight blue.
Things have been trending this way for decades, but now it’s here. Outside of a few council seats in Hamilton, Hopewell and Hightstown, the entire county is Democrat.
Sitting here today, I can’t fathom how the Republicans get their game back together. The loss in Hamilton is really, truly, huge. It might be looked back as the day the Mercer GOP hit bottom.
And as of this moment, I don’t see a way for them to climb back up.