Holmdel Reeling: Republicans Lose One-Party Rule After 10 Years

HOLMDEL, NJ — If Holmdel residents felt the earth move under their feet Tuesday night, that's because what happened in the municipal election that day was nothing short of an axis tilt: The Holmdel mayor — a nine-year Republican incumbent — and his running mate were knocked off by two political newcomers who ran a grassroots, independent campaign.

Eric Hinds gained the fewest votes of all four candidates, despite the fact that he ran with the full support of the deep-pocketed Monmouth County Republican Party. Party chairman Shaun Golden, who was just re-elected to his fourth term as Monmouth County sheriff, is known as a kingmaker in county politics. He is not someone used to seeing his candidates lose.

Neither is Marcy McMullen, chair of the Holmdel Republican Party. She also heartily endorsed Hinds. Neither McMullen or Golden responded to Patch's request for comment for this article.

Golden is said to be mulling a run for New Jersey governor (following in the footsteps of Kim Guadagno, who was Monmouth County sheriff before she was handpicked by Chris Christie to be his lieutenant governor). But he didn't just lose in Holmdel Tuesday: Golden-backed Republican candidates in the 11th legislative district also failed to get enough votes to topple Democratic incumbents Joann Downey and Eric Houghtaling.

How much could this all come back to hurt him?

"I can tell you people within the Republican party across the state of New Jersey were watching this Holmdel race very closely," said a Republican political insider. "Holmdel has been a 5-0 majority town for 10 years. And now the Republican party lost two seats."

Republican Assemblywoman Serena DiMaso, who represents Holmdel in Trenton, and was re-elected last night, weighed in with her thoughts:

"I don't think it hurts Shaun and here's why: Republican candidates swept Neptune City, Belmar and Eatontown last night. We took back the majority of Atlantic Highlands; we swept Spring Lake Heights," she said. "In total, I think we (the Monmouth County Republican Party) took back 63 seats last night."

"This year's Holmdel race was an anomaly," she said.

The results are still unofficial; the Monmouth County Board of Elections plans to count the remaining mail-in ballots on Friday, November 8 and the provisional ballots will be counted Tuesday, November 12. Here are the votes as they stand:

• Cathy Weber (registered Republican, ran as an Independent): 2,072 votes (projected winner)
• Prakesh Santhana (registered unaffiliated): 1,991 votes (projected winner)
• Chiung-Yin Cheng Liu (Republican): 1,965 votes
• Eric Hinds (Republican): 1,953 votes

"I personally think it's a bad reflection (on Golden)," said Carole Balmer, who served as Holmdel's deputy mayor in the '90s and remains active in local politics. Balmer is a Democrat who has long been critical of Hinds; she campaigned for his rivals. "Obviously the Monmouth County Republican party endorsed Hinds and Liu; they felt very complacent and confident and I think that led to a lot of mistakes. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Meanwhile Art Gallagher, a local Republican party analyst who writes the conservative news blog More Monmouth Musings, downplayed the fall-out to Golden.

"Does this hurt Shaun Golden? No. He won by 30,00 votes. This is intramural BS," he said.

Starting January 1, when Weber and Santhana are sworn in, a sea change will take place on the Holmdel Township Committee: The Republicans, who have run the town for a decade, will no longer have single-party rule.

"When the results started coming in Tuesday night, I was actually weeping for joy. Tears were streaming down my face," said Balmer, who was at a watch party with Santhana and Weber at the Holmdel Community Church. "This means we will now actually have checks and balances on the Township Committee."

"It won't just be one party calling all the shots anymore," she continued. "We've been fighting for this for so long and now it actually happened."

The censure vote hurt Hinds at the polls

Hinds took a serious hit when his fellow colleagues on the Township Committee, all of them Republicans who had once been his allies, censured him in October. They accused him of misdirecting $2.1 million in public funds and working behind the scenes to spend the money on building turf fields at the Holmdel Swim Club, without first gaining majority approval from the Committee.

Holmdel Republican party boss McMullen called the censure "fake news" and said the local GOP was still supporting Hinds.

Hinds denied the charge. His supporters, of which there are still many in town, pointed fingers at fellow Committeeman Mike Nikolis as rigging the entire thing. The two had a political falling out earlier this year.

Speaking to Patch Wednesday after the election, Nikolis did not deny that there is bad blood between him and Hinds. The two were once allies and were supposed to run together this fall as a ticket — until Golden told Nikolis to "sit this one out," according to Nikolis.

"When Hinds was told to drop me last year, he lost an ally in me. He stopped talking to me. He decided to keep things secret," said Nikolis.

"But this is not because Eric broke his promise to me," he continued. "This is not because I'm opposed to turf fields. I'm opposed to burying something in a consent agenda. That's not the way government is supposed to work."

He is referring to a $2.1 million expense for turf field construction that was mysteriously placed in the "bills payable" section of the Holmdel Twp. Committee agenda back in April. Neither Mayor Hinds nor Donna Vieiro, the ousted Twp. administrator, explained how it got there.

According to Nikolis, it was the censure vote that really hurt Hinds.

"People in Homdel are educated. They do their homework," he said. "I think one thing you can take away from this race is people were informed. They were paying attention to everything. They saw everything for what it was."

While Hinds' supporters blame Nikolis, it was actually fellow Republican Committeeman Rocco Pascucci who first initiated the censure proceedings against Hinds. He introduced the censure vote.

Pascucci acknowledged to Patch two weeks ago he can likely never run for local office again, as he went against the wishes of the county party by censuring Hinds.

"I really am surprised Hinds lost. I thought he and Cathy would win," said Pascucci on Wednesday. "But she and Prakesh really ran a clean campaign and they were out knocking on doors for months. They worked hard for this and they deserved this."

"It really was the perfect storm; everything fell into place," observed Balmer. "The Democrats didn't run anybody, which gave the Independents a shot. And the Township Committee made mistakes. They thought they were basically untouchable. It gave them a sense of power. They felt like they could do anything without being noticed."

Hinds did not return Patch's request for comment.

Monmouth County Republican Party issues statement

After this article was published, a spokeswoman for the Monmouth County Republican party headquarters in Colts Neck issued the following statement summing up election night 2019:

"With huge wins at the county level and three legislative districts, the Monmouth County Republican Committee had a decisively strong election night! At the top of the County ticket, Sheriff Shaun Golden won by over a 20-point margin. The GOP County freeholder candidates Tom Arnone and Nick DiRocco dominated as well.

On the local level, the GOP took control in Neptune City, Eatontown, and Atlantic Highlands, and flipped Mayoral seats to GOP in Sea Bright and Spring Lake Heights. The Republicans beat back challenges in Belmar, Hazlet and Shrewsbury Borough, and crushed the anti-law enforcement Democrats in Middletown, the largest municipality in the County, with a 2-to-1 margin.

In all, the GOP won 64 seats, sweeping in Wall, Manalapan, Freehold Township, and going unchallenged in Union Beach, Millstone, Rumson, Brielle, Little Silver, Interlaken, Sea Girt, Englishtown, West Long Branch, Upper Freehold Township, Colts Neck, Little Silver, Rumson and Sea Girt."

Keep reading:

Weber And Santhana Oust Hinds In Holmdel Twp. Committee Race

Holmdel Mayor Eric Hinds Censured Over $2.1M Turf Field Expense

Monmouth County GOP Stands By Holmdel Mayor Hinds Despite Censure