Democrats win 15th district Assembly seats in romp fashion
TRENTON >> The rising tide of repudiation of the president buoyed Democrats and drowned GOP and third-party candidates in the notso-competitive special elections here in the capital city.
As expected, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson and Anthony Verrelli, both Democrats, rolled to victory, gobbling up the majority vote Tuesday to determine the two 15th District Assembly seats up for grabs.
Up for grabs was perhaps a relative term as the two Democrats, party-appointed to fill the seats after the incumbents departed for new political posts, were heavily favored in the reliably blue legislative district.
The last time a Republican won here was 1991.
Reynolds-Jackson, a two-term Trenton councilwoman who was selected earlier in the year by committee members to fill the seat vacated by now-state treasurer Liz Muoio, won the seat outright with the unofficial results showing her with more than 73 percent of the votes in Mercer County (38,717).
Verrelli, a carpenter by trade and union boss of Local 254, garnered roughly 73 percent (38,146) of the votes in Mercer County. The former Mercer County Freeholder’s win means he retains the Assembly seat vacated by Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora.
The two made it a clean sweep in Hunterdon County, where both each carried about 28 percent of the votes.
The winners didn’t return phone calls requesting comment on their wins before deadline.
Gusciora, who gave up his Assembly seat earlier this year to be sworn in as Trenton’s mayor said he voted the “whole Democratic line” in the midterm elections.
That included for Verrelli, who the mayor said brings a “working person’s perspective” to his old 15th district seat.
The expected blue wave, painted nationally as a referendum on Donald Trump’s highly charged presidency, which has been defined by the special counsel’s Russian meddling probe and the president’s rhetoric, didn’t help out Republicans Justin Tibbetts, a Paul Perez-backed Trenton ethics board member, and
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