John DiMaio

A political neophyte is seeking Assemblyman John DiMaio’s (R-Hackettstown) former seat on the three-member Warren County freeholder board.

Jason Sarnoski, an electrical engineer from Lopatcong who has never run for elected office, announced his candidacy today.

“I have chosen to join the race for freeholder because I understand the issues that are close at heart to the people of Warren County,” Sarnoski said in a statement.

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The State Assembly gets two new members today.

Former Bridgeton Council President Celeste Riley, a Democrat, and former Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio, a Republican, are both set to be sworn in at this afternoon’s session.  

Riley replaces Doug Fisher, the state’s new secretary of agriculture, in South Jersey’s 3rd District.  She’s both the first female to represent that district and to come from Cumberland County. 

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Former Raritan Township Committeewoman – and former Republican -Chris Harcar wants to pursue an Assembly seat as a Democrat in the 23rd District, and the obvious question is whether her run has  a grudge match factor with a party now headlined by nemesis state Sen. Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan). 

The women tangled in June 2007, leaving Harcar to allege that Karrow busted her arm in a criminal complaint a judge later dismissed.  

Harcar broke with the party last year. 

“I’m not running for the senate,” said the former president of the local Republican Club and nine-year veteran of local elected office, denying that her run has anything to do with Karrow.

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Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt has decided to run for reelection rather than make a bid for the state assembly in the Republican primary.

“We had three good candidates, and we had a decision reached by those folks. I’m not going to question that decision. It is what it is.  You move on,” he said.  “I have a lot of things I’m working on at the county level and I really enjoy my job.”

Holt initially wanted to run for state senate in a special convention against Assembly members Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan) and Michael Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) to fill the seat of newly elected U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton).  Karrow won that contest, but Doherty plans to challenge her again in the June primary, leaving his assembly seat open.  After dropping out before the state senate convention, Holt decided to run for Karrow’s old assembly seat, but came in third behind Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio and fellow Hunterdon County Freeholder Erik Peterson at a follow-up convention.

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Asserting that primaries are great forums for the exchange of ideas, Ed Smith of Asbury, chief of staff to Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) tonight told PolitickerNJ.com he intends to run for the Assembly in the 23rd District Republican Primary.

“I’m a pro-life, pro-business and pro-gun Republican,” said Smith, 55, employed in Doherty’s office for seven years, and a candidate for the Assembly twice before, in 1995 and 1999.

As of tonight, Smith is the first candidate to enter the 23rd District Assembly race in addition to Assemblyman-elect John DiMaio - and presumably Hunterdon County Freeholder Erik Peterson, who placed second behind DiMaio in last month’s special convention. 

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If Michael Doherty figures out that he could be without a public office in January - that would mean losing the Senate primary to Marcia Karrow, since the train has already left the station on his District 23 Assembly seat, Doherty could head home to Warren County and run in a March special election convention for John DiMaio's seat on the Board of Freeholders.  Doherty would likely win that race, keeping him in the game for a little while longer - maybe long enough to challenge Surrogate Susan Dickey in 2010 or Karrow in 2011, or just wait and see if Warren County winds up in a more Doherty-friendly district after reapportionment.

Should Doherty run for Freeholder next month - don't hold your breath, this strategy is extraordinarily unlikely, he would have a chance to quickly emerge as the leader of the Warren GOP if he decided to also work to dump incumbent Everett Chamberlain in the June primary.  Chamberlain has struggled to win the approval of Warren Republicans, local insiders say.  That could give Doherty a 2-1 majority on the Freeholder Board.

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When John DiMaio takes his seat in the State Assembly sometime over the next few weeks, it will become the first time in history that two Warren County residents will be serving together in the lower house.  DiMaio, at least until January 2010, will serve with his onetime friend and political ally, four-term Assemblyman Michael Doherty.

The last time Warren had two legislators was in 1990, when eleven-term State Senator Wayne Dumont resigned for health reasons.  At the time, the district included parts of Warren and Sussex counties.  The Warren County legislator was Chuck Haytaian, then the Assembly Minority Leader.  Twelve-term Assemblyman Robert Littell moved up to the Senate, and he was replaced by another Sussex County Republican, Scott Garrett.

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The third-step in the four-part contest to nominate Republican legislative candidates in the 23rd  district will be a decision by Hunterdon County Republicans to pick a second Assembly candidate to run on their organization line in the June primary.  Their ticket already includes newly-elected State Sen. Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan) and Assemblyman-elect John DiMaio (R-Hackettstown).  The other Assembly candidate will be from Hunterdon.

The leading candidates for the one seat are the two Hunterdon Freeholders who lost to DiMaio in yesterday's special election convention: Erik Peterson and Matthew Holt.  On the first ballot, Peterson beat Holt 104-56.  These numbers might indicate an advantage for Peterson.

Hunterdon GOP Chairman Henry Kuhl and the Republican screening committee must pick a candidate to replace Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington), who says he's leaving the Assembly to challenge Karrow in the Republican State Senate primary.  Even if Doherty decides to drop his Senate bid, it appears that the door is closed to being included on the organization line for a fifth term in the State Assembly.

The main thing to watch over the next few weeks is to see if Doherty stays in the Senate race - an uphill fight, now that his friend and ally, DiMaio, has now endorsed Karrow and will run on her ticket, and that his friend and ally, Warren County GOP Chairman Douglas Steinhardt, has agreed to back the Kuhl slate.  If Doherty continues, he might recruit two Assembly candidates to run with him. Read More >

CLINTON TWP. - First elected to local office when he was 23 years old, Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio has prevailed to claim a vacant District 23 Assembly seat after waging a second ballot war with fellow red meat Republican conservative, Hunterdon County Freeholder Erik Peterson.

153 for DiMaio; 

141 for Peterson.

Victory for the veteran DiMaio at this special, joint-county convention hinged on his reaching into the more voter-dense Hunterdon County to pilfer votes from Peterson's backyard.

On the two Warren County voting machines, DiMaio recorded totals of 60 and 62 votes, while Peterson claimed just eight and nine votes. On the one Hunterdon County machine, DiMaio pulled 31 votes, while Peterson won 124 votes.

In his first ballot loss to DiMaio and Peterson, Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt, a moderate, won 42 votes from Hunterdon and 14 from Warren. 

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CLINTON - Freeholder Erik Peterson and Freeholder John DiMaio will meet on a second ballot, GOP counsel Mark Sheridan just announced.

Freeholder Matt Holt is out.

129 votes for DiMaio;

56 for Holt;

104 Peterson.

Now voters begin to line up again in front of the Sequoia voting machines.

"The reason it's taking so long is these are those new paper trial voting machines," says former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer. 

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