Hillary Clinton won every district in Red Bank but the fifth, lifting the party’s entire ticket. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
She lost at the national level, but Hillary Clinton won Red Bank, and her coattails helped Democrats pull even with Republicans on the borough council Tuesday night, election returns tallied by the Monmouth County Clerk show.
Clinton captured all but one of the but one of Red Bank’s nine voting districts — the fifth — topping president-elect Donald Trump townwide, 2,633 to 1,510. (The figures don’t include mail-in ballots, said borough clerk Pam Borghi.)
In fact, every Democrat on the ballot won the Red Bank vote, suggesting that voters went straight down the party column in making their selections. But all the party’s candidates except the council contenders failed to win office.
In addition to Trump, Republicans who lost Red Bank but won overall included incumbent Chris Smith, who topped Lorna Phillipson with 61 to 36 percent of the sixth congressional district  vote; incumbent Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden, who topped Democratic challenger Jeff Cantor 56 to 44 percent; incumbent county Surrogate Rosemary Peters, 58 to 42; and incumbent Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso.
In the council race, incumbent Kathy Horgan led the five-way race for two seats, with 25.14 percent. Her running mate, first-time candidate Erik Yngstrom, pulled 24.73 percent. Republican challengers Brian Hanlon and Kellie O’Bosky Colwell each tallied just below 19 percent, and incumbent Cindy Burnham finished a distant fifth, with just 12.45 percent.
Hanlon and O’Bosky Colwell won the first and fifth districts, and Democrats took the rest.
Here are the detailed results:Â red-bank-2016-general-election-results
As a result, Democrats and Republicans will be split 3-3 on the council when it reorganizes in January. Just a year earlier, Republicans claimed their first majority in a generation, following he victories of Mark Taylor and Mike Whelan. But a split four months later led GOP committee members to knock Burham from the ticket, prompting her run as an independent.
The governing body is led by a Democratic mayor, Pasquale Menna, who’s got two years left to his current term.
