Hunterdon County GOP Chairman Henry Kuhl

There’s back-chatter in the 23rd District that Hunterdon County Chairman Henry Kuhl doesn’t have all of the county’s 212 county committee seats filled in what most insiders predict will be a photo finish election between Assemblyman Mike Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) and Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan Twp.) for the vacant state Senate seat.

But Kuhl, who supports home-county candidate Karrow over the Warren-based Doherty, says there are only three vacancies in all of Hunterdon County – a point of pride for the chairman.

“Our seats are harder to fill because we have arguably the purest county committee system in the state,” said Kuhl. “Our seats are harder to fill, but we have only three vacancies.”

At issue really is how many of those seats Kuhl controls in the wake of a challenge to his leadership last year.

The Hunterdon GOP’s bylaws specify that each voting district requires a male and female representative to serve each two-year term; unlike Warren County, which changed its bylaws requiring gender balance in each voting district.

“We only have one district where there are two males - because there was no female running - and the county clerk certified those results in the June 2008 primary,” Kuhl said of a certification that in effect trumped the county committee’s bylaws.

Even though he lives in Warren, home to just 181 county committee votes, Doherty notes that he consistently beats Hunterdon-based candidates on their home turf in elections, which he says ought to count for something when party leadership tries to make a determination about the stronger candidate.

The assemblyman said today he believes Kuhl’s correct that almost all the seats are filled in Hunterdon County.

“They’re almost all filled in Warren, too, but there are a few vacancies,” acknowledged Doherty, a dearth that could prove a difference-maker in a close election, unless Doherty can deprive Karrow of a sizeable chunk from her own county without giving ground to Karrow in Warren.

There's evidence that he can.

In challenging Kuhl's leadership last year, Doherty ally Mark Peck, the mayor of Bloomsbury, was able to generate  78 county committee votes to Kuhl's 124.

Kuhl says he's confident some of those renegades will this time stay with the Hunterdon team, however.