Incumbents Billy Portman and Kate Triggiano led a slate that swept all seven offices on the ballot. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It’s official: incumbent mayor Billy Portman won re-election with nearly 61 percent of the vote in Red Bank’s May 9 election.
Borough Clerk Laura Reinertsen certified the win by Portman and his Red Bank’s Ready slate of council candidates Wednesday.
Riverview Medical Center President Tim Hogan garnered just 38.5 percent of the vote, marking Portman’s third consecutive victory since getting into politics 13 months ago.
The certified results showed Portman with 1,289 votes to Hogan’s 817 in the history-making, nonpartisan election.
Separately, the Monmouth County Clerk’s tally, updated Tuesday, reported 12 write-ins for mayor. The identities of those vote-getters was not immediately available.
In the 13-candidate race for six council seats, Kate Triggiano, the sole incumbent on Portman’s team, was the top vote-getter, with 1,195.
The three incumbents on Hogan’s Red Bank Together slate – Jacqueline Sturdivant (793 votes), John Jackson (704) and Michael Ballard (609) – finished eighth, ninth and last, respectively, Reinertsen reported.
On election night, the Hogan team issued a statement saying its members “look forward to the final vote count.” As of late Thursday morning, the slate had not conceded to the Portman side.
Independent contender Suzanne Viscomi, making her fourth bid for a council seat, came in eleventh, with 691.
The county clerk reported and 67 write-in votes for council.
Portman came out of nowhere in the spring of 2022 to challenge Ballard for the Democratic nomination for mayor. He walloped the second-term council member in the primary that June, and went on to win an uncontested general election in November.
Thirty percent of the borough’s 7,105 registered voters cast ballots in the off-cycle election, which was triggered by a voter referendum in 2022 that called for a new “council-manager” form of government, to replace the “borough” form in place since 1908.
The new mayor and council members will be seated for four-year terms on July 1, though to initiate staggered elections, four council members will be chosen by lottery at the reorganization session to serve two years.
Here are the full official results: Clerk Certification Municipal Election
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