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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

CLINTON – Reveling in his rep as a “tight-fisted” politician, Hunterdon County Freeholder Erik Peterson stands onstage now, having accepted the nomination of Hampton Mayor Rob Walton.

“What would Abraham Lincoln think today to witness the condition of our state and our nation?” Peterson asks the crowd. “We have witnessed ever expanding state spending, and borrowing. Ladies and gentlemen, this must end!”

As freeholder, he opposed a clubhouse at the golf course on principle, and backed a proposal to increase services for veterans of the armed forces. 

“As the last great president to fully embody the principles of our party, Ronald Reagan reminded us (there are simple solutions to problems),” Peterson proclaims.

CLINTON - The ugliest word one can utter here in this conservative district is “Trenton,” and “Heaven knows how we’ve suffered under the one size fits all thinking that has come out of Trenton,” Kingwood Township Mayor Eileen Niemann says as she puts Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt’s name in for the vacant District 23 Assembly seat.

Holt’s up there now. 

“We need to build the foundation on which a more fiscally responsible state can grow,” the self-described optimist tells the crowd. “Let’s not forget the true measure of good leadership is to keep in mind the ultimate goal. We must never allow politics to interfere with that pursuit.”

He goes for an analogy when he considers the other dreaded concept here: the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), likening the agency to a Superbowl planning committee which abruptly decides three weeks before the big game to build a stadium in an area other than the one already designated.

CLINTON – Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio stands at the podium now facing what over the last two hours has swelled to an almost packed Clinton Township Middle School auditorium.

An eight year veteran of the freeholder board and former president of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors, DiMaio reminds people that he fought against the Highlands Act, which he cites as an attack on Constitutional rights of home ownership.

He promises if elected to go after the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) before it “overpopulates the region.”

CLINTON – The candidates for the vacant 23rd District Assembly seat are at last onstage here at the Clinton Township Middle School and Warren County Freeholder Director Rick Gardner is preparing to nominate his colleague, Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio.

CLINTON TWP. – Undeterred by a hotel bar television set in the next room that jars the chandeliers with each apparent dramatic upswing, 50 people pack the chairs in the Holiday Inn ballroom here on the outskirts of downtown as three Republicans make their respective cases for why they should be the next assemblyman from the 23rd Legislative District.

It’s a comparatively quiet drama – quiet but intense.

Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt, Hunterdon County Freeholder Erik Peterson, and Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio have spent the last six weeks relentlessly crisscrossing the Warren-Hunterdon county line and engaging members of the GOP committees of these two rural and expansive west New Jersey counties.

They recognize faces in the crowd tonight, including that of Hunterdon County Republican Party Chairman Henry Kuhl, who impassively says to a visitor, “Welcome to God’s country,” to the question of who’s going to win the contest.

Sponsored by the Clinton Township Republican Club, this is the same brook and hamlet part of the state that launched the political career of U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton), a political moderate whose 7th Congressional District victory last year gave the GOP something to savor in an otherwise frigid political year for Republicans - but also left the harder right wing of the party agonizing about its future.

Three candidates running for a vacant Assembly seat in the 23rd Legislative District are scheduled to appear tonight at a candidates’ forum sponsored by the Clinton Township Republican Club.

The event will feature candidates’ opening comments, and then questions from the audience.  It starts at 7 p.m. in the Regina Room of the Holiday Inn in Clinton Township. 

The candidates - Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt, Hunterdon County Freeholder Erik Peterson, and Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio – will compete Saturday in a special convention held by the joint Hunterdon/Warren County Republican Committees at the Clinton Township Middle School.