HUDSON COUNTY — So far, there are no surprises on election night in Hudson County. As of 9 p.m. — an hour after the polls closed — the Democratic incumbents in all state legislative races, as well as their runningmates, seem to be coasting to easy victories.
Legislative
Each state legislative district has a state senator and two Assembly members.
State Sen. Sandra Cunningham in the 31st District, Nicholas Sacco in the 32nd District, and Brian Stack in the 33rd appeared well ahead of their opponents as early results trickled in. Polls closed at 8 p.m. The Democratic Assembly candidates allied with them also appeared to be ahead of their opponents.
Freeholders
In the 5th District Freeholder race, in which incumbent Democrat Anthony Romano was fending off a challenge from Independent Kurt Gardiner to represent Hoboken and Jersey City Heights, Romano was ahead 959 votes to 163 votes with only a third of the voting districts reporting.
In the other contested freeholder race, in the 9th District, Democrat Albert Cifelli was ahead of Republican Paul Castelli, but only two of 52 districts had been counted.
Jersey City
In the heated race for two Jersey City council-at-large seats, the race was close among seven of the 17 contenders.
With 133 of 182 districts in, Viola Richardson and Suzanne Mack were in the lead. Richardson was far ahead of the pack, but Mack was closely followed by Ronald Lavarro Jr., Kalimah Ahmad, and Radames Ray Velazquez Jr. Richard Boggiano and Dan Levin were a few hundred votes behind them.
Countywide
Tom DeGise was likely to keep his county executive seat. Only 199 of 447 districts had reported by 9 p.m. Democrat DeGise was ahead of Republican Stephen DeLuca by 13, 721 votes to 3,133. DeLuca’s tally was still impressive for heavily Democratic Hudson County.
For county register, Pamela Gardner was ahead of Republican Edith Jorge, 13,052 to 2,888.
Watch hudsonreporter.com for more concrete results, and see this weekend’s papers.