15th District
Tracy Sinatra, a project manager from West Windsor.
They had tough goes in Mercer County — comprised of municipalities of Ewing, Hopewell Borough, Hopewell Township, Lawrence Township, Pennington, Trenton, West Windsor.
Tibbetts, challenging Verrelli, managed only 24 percent of the votes while Sinatra, looking to beat out Reynolds-Jackson, had 25 percent of the votes in Mercer County.
Both didn’t fare any better in Hunterdon County, traditionally a Republican stronghold that Trump carried in the presidential election, garnering 22 and 21 percent of the votes in the municipalities of East Amwell, West Amwell and Lambertville.
It wasn’t close to enough to overcome the Democrats’ substantial lead.
Third-party candidates who were banking on name recognition in Trenton also greatly miscalculated their political fortunes.
“I thought I was going to get at least 1,000 votes,” said Edward “NJ Weedman” Forchion, who unofficially tallied 902 votes between Mercer and Hunterdon counties.
The marijuana legalization activist, who ran on the campaign slogan “Repeal Bail Reform,” had hoped to pull off a miraculous win that would have propelled him from the Big House to the Statehouse, as he aimed to take out the highly favored Reynolds Jackson.
Forchion, who has often run for office as a political statement, was fresh off being released from the slammer, where he spent more than 400 days locked up awaiting trial on drug and witness intimidation charges.
He beat the witness intimidation charges but still wasn’t able to mount a legitimate campaign, some of his efforts stymied after he was sidelined from Facebook for two months over a series of controversial posts he made about forthcoming legal pot legalization.
“Ah, whatever,” said a nonplussed Forchion, who recently reopened his East State restaurant and pot temple. “We all know people walk in the booth and vote all Democrat or all Republican. It’s really a moratorium on Trump. I’m not disappointed at all. My purpose of running for office was to say I’m still here. The system locked me up for 447 days to try to shut me up. I successfully gave the finger to the system whether I won or not. Mission accomplished.” Alex Bethea, a former two-term councilman who earlier this year mounted an unsuccessful bid for Trenton mayor, said he had to reassess his future political prospects after he was dealt a crippling blow by Verrelli.
“I gave it my best shot so I can’t ask for any better than a try,” he said. “If the voters didn’t see it my way, hey, that’s politics.”
Bethea, who was born and raised in Trenton, came in sixth out of the seven candidates in the capital city’s mayoral election in May. Disappointed with his near dead-last showing, Bethea had promised at the time to retire from politics.
But he quickly unretired, mounting an 11th hour, shoestring campaign for the Assembly seat that consisted mainly of a news conference on the steps of City Hall a week before the special election.
Bethea, whose family has become synonymous with wrestling prowess in the capital city, said at the presser he was “confident” he’d win the seat.
But that certainty gave way to doubt about his political future as the unofficial results showed Verrelli, of Hopewell Township, substantially outpacing him across Mercer and Hunterdon counties.
More hurtful to Bethea was Verrelli’s carrying of Trenton’s voting districts, where the exTrenton councilman felt he had an edge.
After learning of Verrelli’s dominance in Trenton, Bethea said it might be “time for me to hang it up.”
“That is very surprising. Certainly, I didn’t have the resources to pump into this like my opponent,” he said. “A lot of factors go into winning and losing.”