Election '08: Adler, Lance, Garrett, Lautenberg win, Obama wins N.J.; Monmouth Freeholder race headed to recount

Barack Obama won New Jersey's carried New Jersey by a 57%-42% margin and Frank Lautenberg was re-elected to a fifth term in the U.S. Senate by 55%-43% margin tonight as Democrats picked up a congressional seat with the election of John Adler in the third district.

Republicans held the 7th district House seat, with Leonard Lance defeating Linda Stender by a 51%-42% margin.  GOP incumbent Scott Garrett was re-elected to a fourth term in Congress, defeating Democrat Dennis Shulman, a blind Rabbi, by a 56%-42% margin.

The battle for control of the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders is headed for a recount, with Republicans winning one seat and Democrats leading in the race for the second seat by just 18 votes.  The lead of Democrat Amy Mallet over Republican John Curley includes absentee ballots, but not provisional ballots. 

In Bayonne, Police Director Mark Smith was elected Mayor, defeating former Municipal Court Judge Patrick Conaghan in a special election to replace Joseph Doria, now the state Community Affairs Commissioner.  Dr. Alex Blanco won a special election for Mayor of Passaic, a post that became vacant following Sammy Rivera's criminal conviction.  In a special election for the Central Ward seat on the Newark City Council, former Charles Bell, who had the support of ex-Mayor Sharpe James, defeated labor leader Eddie Osborne, who had the backing of Mayor Cory Booker.

In Bergen County, three Democratic Freeholders won re-election despite the indictment of their party leader, Joseph Ferriero.  But Republican Kathleen Donovan was re-elected to a fifth term as County Clerk.  

In Atlantic County, Republican Frank Balles unseated five-term Democratic Sheriff Jim McGettigan by more than 9,000 votes, but Democrats picked up an open seat on the Board of Freeholders.

In  Burlington, Democrats ousted two Freeholders and won the County Clerk post.  In Cumberland, the GOP lost their only Freeholder seat and the incumbent Sheriff and Surrogate was unseated. Democrat Robert Austino defeated Sheriff Michael Barruzza by 1,585 votes, and Douglas Rainear, a Democratic Freeholder, ousted GOP incumbent Arthur Marchand by 4,888 votes.

Democrats Bruce Bobbitt and David Lindenmuth were re-elected to the Salem County Board of Freeholders, but Republicans have won an open Democratic seat.   Dale Cross leads his GOP running mate Benjamin Laury by nine votes in a tally that includes absentee but not provisional ballots.

Ocean County Clerk Carl Block won a second five-year term, defeating Berkeley Township Mayor Jason Varano by a 53%-47% margin. Two Republican Freeholders in Somerset County survived a close contest.

Democrats Rob Andrews (72%), Frank Pallone (67%), Bill Pascrell (71%), Steve Rothman (68%), Donald Payne (99%), Rush Holt (62%) and Albio Sires (75%), and Republicans Frank LoBiondo (59%), Christopher Smith (66%), and Rodney Frelinghuysen (62%) were re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  

In a special election for Neil Cohen's 20th district Assembly seat, Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth) defeated her GOP rival, former Union Township school board member Linda Gaglione.

Adler, a 48-year-old six-term State Senator and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, defeated Republican Christopher Myers, the Mayor of Medford, by a 52%-48% margin.  Adler's 9,000 vote plurality in his hometown of Cherry Hill and his 5,000 vote margin in Burlington County offset Myers' 12,00 vote win in Ocean County.  Adler, the first Democrat to win the seat since Thomas Ferrell did it in 1882, will succeed Republican Jim Saxton, who is retiring after 24 years in Congress.

Joining Adler as a freshman Congressman from New Jersey will be Lance, 56, a veteran legislator and former Senate Minority Leader who held the 7th district seat for the Republicans.  He beat Stender, who came within 1% of unseating Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson in 2006, carrying Hunterdon, Somerset and Union counties.  Stender won only in Middlesex.