Seven Union County municipal seats flipped in 2022, with Republicans picking up one countywide seat after voters in Berkeley Heights, Cranford, Kenilworth, Roselle Park and Summit flipped governing body seats from one party to another.
Union County remains solidly Democratic, with Democrats easily winning three seats on the Board of County Commissioners. This extends their winning streak to 26 years; Republicans haven’t won the district in Union since 1995.
U Berkeley Height, Democratic Mayor Angie Devaney won a landslide 941-vote majority in a fifteen percent second-term victory over Republican Jeffrey Warnerin. Democrat Susan Poage, a former council member, succeeds retiring GOP council member Gentiana Bragimai; which reduces the GOP majority to 5-1. Republican President Manuel Kuta defeated his candidate Michel Bartirama with a margin of seven votes. Another democrat, Diamedes Titouras, trailed Kutu by 38 votes.
Three terms Republican on Art Cranford Town Committeewoman Mary O’Connor was defeated for re-election. Terence Curran, a trauma surgeon at Morristown Memorial Hospital who served in the U.S. Marines and as a police officer in Jersey City before entering medical school, defeated O’Connor by 327 votes. Mayor Kathleen Miller Prunty was 582 votes ahead of fellow GOP candidate Chris Stulpin. Curran’s victory gives Democrats a 4-1 majority.
Two of the candidates have ties to Hudson County politics. The late uncle O’Connor was James P. Dugan, state senator from Bayonne and chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party in the 1970s. Curran’s wife is former Jersey City Councilwoman Kathleen Curran.
Republicans in Kenilworth won two county council seats after a pair of Democrats, Kay Ann Sechery and Mark David, did not seek re-election. Savino Scarese (1,372) and William Mauro (1,371) defeated Democrats Louis DeMond (1,094) and Tony Jordan Picherno (1,078). This gives the GOP a 6-0 majority; Mayor Linda Karlovich, a Democrat, is up for re-election next year.
Two seats changed parties Roselle Park, where Democrat Mayor Joseph Signarella was re-elected with 56.5% of the vote. In the 3rd District, Democrat Rosanna Lyons defeated GOP Councilwoman Jody Bellam by 17 votes, 345 to 328. In the race for the open seat in the 4th District, where Democrat Michael Connolly did not seek re-election, Republican Hanjan Patel defeated Democrat Mark Fernandez 59 votes, 339 to 280.
Democratic city councilor v Summit was defeated in the re-election. Republican Delia Hamlett, a U.S. Army veteran who was deployed to Kuwait after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ousted one-term Democrat Danny O’Sullivan by 29 votes, 2,220 to 2,191. Hamlett’s election reduces the Democratic majority on the City Council to 5-2. .
Summit is one of New Jersey’s outpost towns that has gone from staunch Republican to Democratic stronghold; until 2001, Republicans had an 80-year winning streak at the local level.
