After Assembly Defeat, Camarota Eyes Another Term on South Brunswick Council

After falling short in his bid for Assemblyman of the 16th District, South Brunswick Councilman Joseph Camarota said he is now looking towards running for re-election next year for his seat on the Township Council.

The terms of Democratic Councilmen Camarota, Charles Carley, and Republican Councilman John O'Sullivan will be up for grabs in 2012, after no seats were up for election this year. O'Sullivan was defeated Tuesday in his bid for Middlesex County Freeholder.

"It was a tough pill to swallow but it is what it is," Camarota said of Tuesday's election results. "We went to bed Monday knowing we did everything we could do to get our message out to the people, but they had a stronger message that people believed in more I guess."

Incumbent Republican Assemblyman Peter Biondi (R-Hillsborough) was elected to another term, along with running mate  (R-Hillsborough), who defeated  (D-Kendall Park) and running mate  (D-Flemington).

Biondi finished with 19,939 votes, Ciatarelli with 19,390 votes, Camarota with 17,120 votes and Corfield with 17,099 votes.

In Middlesex County, the Democratic Assembly candidates received the highest vote totals, with Camarota finishing with 4,207 votes, Corfield with 4,261 votes, Biondi with 1,787 votes and Ciatarelli with 1,705 votes.

The Democrats also took Mercer County as Camarota finished with 3,121 votes, Corfield with 2,862 votes, Biondi with 2,121 votes and Ciatarelli with 1,925 votes.

The  from earlier this year was expected to put the 16th District in play for Democrats, but the historically Republican-leaning district was held by the GOP incumbents in

Incumbent Republican Sen.  (R-Somerville) also won over Democratic challenger  (D-Hillsborough) by a total of 20,594 votes to 16,776 votes.

"The hope was the South Brunswick would offset Hunterdon, and Princeton would offset Somerset County," Camarota said. "We knew there was a strong Republican presence in Somerset, so we hoped it would be close. We lost by about 2,000 in Hunterdon, but only won about 1,100 votes in South Brunswick. We were hoping to get about 35 percent voter turnout in South Brunswick, but that wasn't the case since we didn't have a local race." 

Bateman said the victory was made sweeter by the challenge of running in a district with higher Democratic representation than the 16th has experienced in recent history.

“This is a great victory,” Bateman said. “With the redistricting, it became much more competitive for us. In fact, there are 5,300 more Democrats registered, so it was an uphill battle. They got awful negative particularly against my running mate who was has cancer and was in the hospital, they attacked his record, and then they went after me. A lot of negative pieces went out against me that just weren’t true, so this was a sweet victory.”

Ciattarelli said the message of smaller government was something that voters in the district got behind and supported.

“What this election says to me is that our message resonated with people and I think it was very simple message in that it’s all about leadership,” Ciattarelli said. “People want independent, honest, determined leadership. It's all about the size and cost of government—they want it to be smaller, less expensive and smarter and about addressing New Jersey’s property tax crisis.”

Camarota said his sole purpose in running was to give South Brunswick a voice in Trenton. South Brunswick became the largest town in the 16th District following the from earlier this year. South Brunswick (43,417) and Hillsborough in Somerset County (38,303) are the two most populous towns in the district.

"We went from having nice representation on the Democratic side to having none," Camarota said. "We thought there was an opportunity for someone from South Brunswick to finally go to Trenton and get money for widening Route 1 and to be a voice for not only South Brunswick, but for the entire district. But that didn't happen."

Camarota said he would now turn his attention to next year's race for the Township Council. He said he was not ready to make a decision about running again for the Assembly in two years.

"My focus is South Brunswick, I love working for the people here and I still intend to run next year for council," he said. "That's the only thing on my mind. I'm not thinking about two years from now. I continue to look forward to serving the people of South Brunswick."

Middlesex

Mercer

Somerset

Hunterdon

Total

Corfield

4261

2862

6824

3152

17099

Camarota

4207

3121

6692

3100

17120

Biondi

1787

2121

10336

5695

19939

Ciattarelli

1705

1925

10166

5594

19390

John DeBellis contributed to this article.