Democratic Princeton Council incumbents Heather Howard and Lance Liverman defeated their Republican challengers to win three-year terms on the governing body Tuesday night.
Howard was the top vote-getter with 3,207 votes. Liverman had 3,116 votes. Republican Lynn Lu Irving had 1,211 votes, and Republican Kelly DiTosto received 1,1117 votes.
The count includes absentee ballots.
The campaign season was a quiet one, with many voters saying they did not know anything about the challengers’ positions on town issues. Some years the Republicans don’t bother to field candidates for the council race in the Democrat-dominated town.
Once again, Princeton votes for higher taxes, bloated budgets, huge debt service payments, unresponsive politicians and more government meddling. People just can’t seem to help themselves, they just vote to make the biggest problems in New Jersey even bigger.
I guess we need to educate people more….
If voters “did not know anything about the challengers’ positions on town issues”, they’re not reading the newspapers or checking out social media. The Republican candidates’ views on real issues affecting Princeton were readily available–about taxes, back room wheeling and dealing, failure to listen to the public, the outrageous local debt and the list goes on and on.
The fact is, local Democrats are such hardened partisans they want to believe slogans like “more efficient government” and “we’re working to achieve the promise of consolidation” (after three years!) are positions on the issues. Let’s face it, by and large most local voters look only at party affiliation. That’s why taxes are constantly on the rise and services deteriorate because voters give mediocre officials a pass in the name of party unity.
It’ no wonder then that Republicans find the collective head in the sand attitude of most local voters to be frustrating in the extreme. Nevertheless, when Republicans do run in Princeton, they routinely pull 30 to 40% of the vote. The fact that the Mayor and Council actively suppress political diversity by failing to appoint Republicans to local boards, committees and commissions in anything approximating their local numbers in the electorate, keeps the community from getting to know Republicans and their views on the issues.
Local Democrat officials say their actions are promoting “shared, progressive values”. I call it hypocrisy.
The Republican candidates obviously got zero organizational support, having their children write letters and not being able to debate. What local democracy needs is for the Republicans to get their act together like the Democrats have instead of constant impotent whining.
That is simply not true. The Princeton Republican Committee gave us a tremendous amount of support. We had several letters to the editor endorsing our campaign. And for the record, our boys wanted to write a letter supporting us. If you feel that is pathetic then I feel sorry for you. My children being proud of what I do is something I am grateful for. As for the whining…you seem to be doing a good job with that.
Why wouldn’t you participate in the LWV candidate’s forum? I would like to vote Republican but if you won’t participate in mainstream political events, I can’t support you.
You mean the League of Democratic Women Voters? The principals thereof do not even bother to edit their PCDO connections on their own Facebook pages. (take a look before they delete them) Interesting, too, that the Dems (Zwicker and Vella) actually READ prepared responses to the supposedly randomly-selected “audience questions.” Whoops.
The reason that Republicans can’t get any traction is because they view non-partisan organizations such as the League of Women Voters as partisan.
The reality is, quite simply, that the truth doesn’t matter to most voters any more. They care more about hearing the talking points that they want to hear, whether they are factual or not, than they do about the truth itself. That’s what liberal America and the liberal media have done to this country.
The record shows that the Republican candidates did not want to publicly discuss their views in a nonpartisan forum with their opponents.
It is ironic that candidates from the party of Lincoln were afraid to discuss their positions on the issues.
My politics are usually more Democrat, but I think it’s unfair to insult local Republicans like this when the electoral system is so clearly rigged. Every year, about a quarter of the electorate votes Republican, but the Council is always 100% (D). The current system is unrepresentative, and if it was the other way round, Dems would agree it’s a disgrace. We should move to non-partisan elections like in West Windsor.