Republican 11th District Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (l-r), Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini and Sen. Jennifer Beck celebrate their reelection victory on Nov. 8 at the American Hotel in Freehold. Monmouth County Republicans had plenty of reason to smile as they swept the Nov. 8 election for the Board of Chosen Freeholders and the state legislative delegations.
Sen. Jennifer Beck took home nearly 57 percent of the votes in the 11th District, defeating Democratic challenger Ray Santiago, who had just over 43 percent of the votes.
The 11th District will now be the state’s first all-female legislative district: incumbent Assembly membersMary PatAngelini and Caroline Casagrande each garnered over 26 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic challengers Vin Gopal and Kathleen Horgan, who each drew almost 22 percent of the votes cast.
Victorious Republicans celebrated noisily on election night at the American Hotel in Freehold with a crowd of supporters.
Republican County Committee Chairman Joseph Oxley addresses the crowd gathered at GOP headquarters on Election Night to celebrate the reelection of Republican candidates including county Surrogate Rosemarie Peters (second from right) and Freeholder Lillian Burry (far right). “We have in Monmouth County a historic moment,” Beck said. “We are in the state of New Jersey the first all-female legislative team, and we are thankful of your confidence in our ability to be the voice in the issues that matter to you.”
Earlier this year, the state Legislative Redistricting Committee approved a new map for the state’s 40 districts that moved Casagrande and Beck from the 12th District to join Angelini in the 11th.
They previously served with Republican Declan O’Scanlon, who was moved to the 13th District, where he held on to his Assembly seat.
Angelini said she was proud to join the team.
“We are the first all-female legislative team and we are Republican women,” she said. “We are on the right side of the issues and that is why we won.”
Casagrande also said she was proud to be re-elected to her seat in the General Assembly. “It’s so extraordinary that the voters have the confidence in us to put us back to keep fighting our good fight with Governor [Chris] Christie,” she said.
“We are so proud of what we’ve done for the last two years, and I can’t wait for the next two years to keep righting the ship.”
Before joining the Senate in 2005, Beck served one term as an assemblywoman and two terms on the Red Bank Borough Council.
Casagrande and Angelini were elected to the Assembly in 2008. Angelini is executive director of Prevention First, a substance abuse awareness nonprofit.
In an email last week, Gopal said he is pleased with the Democrats’ showing.
“We fought a hard race and we are proud of the message we sent,” he said. “We came closer than anyone expected, and despite being outspent nearly four to one, we won key towns, including Senator Beck’s hometown of Red Bank.”
Horgan also credited the Democrats for sticking to the issues.
“While my running mates and I were disappointed not to win, we are proud of the way we ran our clean, issue-based campaign,” she said. “We worked tirelessly and fought the good fight.
“Considering that it was our first time running at the state level, the numbers were quite good.”
O’Scanlon will be joining Assemblywoman Amy Handlin in representing the 13th District. The two defeated Democratic challengers Kevin Lavan and Patrick Short.
Handlin had over 30 percent of the votes and O’Scanlon came in with over 28 percent. Short and Lavan each had about 19 percent of the votes.
On election night, O’Scanlon acknowledged redistricting had jumbled districts, but he said that all the county Republicans are united. “We were all torn apart in these legislative districts this past year,” he said. “I cannot remember a time in history when Republicans in Monmouth County were this unified,” he added. “When we sensed danger for one of us, we all rallied; it is the start of a major resurgence in Monmouth County.”
Incumbent Republican Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (13th District) drew nearly double the votes cast for challenger Christopher Cullen to win his sixth term.
“We have some outstanding Republican legislators in the Senate and in the General Assembly and we love them all, but I have to tell you our delegation is the finest,” he said. “We have a big job to do to continue what we started nearly two years ago.
“We inherited a broken state and we’ve done a lot of good things under the leadership of Gov. Christie, but we have much more to do to bring New Jersey back to its rightful place as one of the great states in America,” he added.
In the freeholder race, incumbent Lillian Burry and newcomer Gary Rich survived a tight race with incumbent Democratic Freeholder Amy Mallet and challenger William Shea.
Burry and Rich each garnered approximately 26.6 percent of the vote, while Mallet drew 22 percent and Shea had 21 percent.
Burry won a third term as freeholder and said it was a great feeling to win again.
“I’m not going to be as accommodating as my predecessors were,” she said. “I’m going to tell you it’s so wonderful to kick ass.”
Rich, a Spring Lake councilman, addressed the crowd as they sang “Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye.”
“I started this a year ago, and I’m so happy to be here to share this with all of you,” he said. “I look forward to working with you over the coming year.”
Also celebrating victory on election night was county Surrogate Rosemary Peters, who defeated Democrat Michael Steinhorn. Peters described the election results as overwhelming in that virtually every Republican attending the post-election county event had won his or her election.
“I am just as happy as I can be. I really wanted to continue with this job and I wouldn’t be very satisfied if the voters decided it was time for me to retire,” she said. “I am so happy that so many people came out to support us.”
Monmouth County Republican Committee Chairman Joseph Oxley, who introduced each elected official, praised Republicans across the state.
“Our county ticket did extraordinarily well in a year that everyone predicted was going to be a low turnout year,” Oxley said. “I wasn’t worried about a low turnout because the key to success if it’s a low turnout is to make sure your people are the ones that go to the polls.”
Oxley said that more than 42,000 phone calls promoting the Republican candidates were made from the party headquarters.