By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Democratic council candidates Leticia Fraga and David Cohen will face no opponents, either in the primary or in the general election, on their way to winning seats on the governing body., Monday is the filing deadline for candidates to enter the primary, and so far, only Cohen and Fraga have announced they are running to replace incumbents and fellow Democrats Jo S. Butler and Bernard P. Miller. Butler and Miller announced earlier this year they would not be seeking another three-year-term., Meantime, Republican Party chairman Dudley Sipprelle said Wednesday that he is aware of no one on the GOP side planning to run this year., “Nobody has approached me expressing any interest,” he said., He said the local Republican Party is focused on the governor’s and 16th district legislative races for state Senate and Assembly., In Princeton, voter registration is heavily Democratic, so even when Republicans run for local office, they routinely lose in a landslide. As a result, the Democratic primary is the de facto general election in town. But in years like this one when there is no contested primary, Cohen and Fraga will have sewn up victories even before the first vote is cast., “I didn’t expect it to be this easy,” Cohen said., He recalled last year, the council primary was “hotly contested” in which four candidates were vying for two seats. Fraga finished third in that race, but she was determined to run again this year to win a seat on the council on her way to becoming the first Latina ever to win elected office in Princeton., Fraga said Wednesday that she would not “pop the champagne cork” just yet., “I guess until it’s official, it won’t feel real,” she said., Running unopposed will not change her approach to how she campaigns, Fraga said, to talk to people and find out what their concerns are.
