MacArthur Vs. Kim Battle For NJ's 3rd District Remains Unsettled

Tom MacArthur and Andy Kim are waking up Wednesday morning still waiting for answers on who will win the battle for New Jersey's 3rd District seat in the House of Representatives, after unofficial vote tallies left the race too close to call.

As of 7:30 a.m., the unofficial tallies had MacArthur, the Republican incumbent, leading Democrat Kim by 2,315 votes, according to unofficial results. Lawrence Berlinski of the Constitution Party also was running in the general election for the House of Representatives District 3 in New Jersey. Unofficial tallies had him with 3,632 votes.

MacArthur had been leading most of the night Tuesday and held a lead of more than 27,000 votes as off about 10:45 p.m. when Burlington County votes came in; an 87,000-vote infusion put Kim in the lead. But around midnight Ocean County election totals were updated, boosting MacArthur.

However, the Burlington County vote tallies do not include any mail-in ballots and provisional ballots are still unaccounted for in vote totals in that county. Provisional ballots hange in the balance for Ocean County voters as well, as officials wait to see how many arrived by 8 p.m. Thursday.

The swings show the political schism between the two sides of the district: Ocean County leans heavily Republican and voted for Donald Trump by a double-digit margin in 2016. Burlington County, where Kim grew up, is heavily Democratic.

The margin between Kim and MacArthur, however, was very slim in a race where more than 270,000 votes were cast. There were six Burlington County districts that remained uncounted as of 12:30 a.m. Wednesday in the results on the county clerk's website. Unofficial tallies for Ocean County show MacArthur with 76,868 votes and Kim receiving 46,677, while in Burlington Kim has 87,416 and MacArthur 59,540, for preliminary totals of 136,408 for MacArthur and 134,093 for Kim.

Those unofficial totals also do not account for issues that were reported across the state Tuesday, where voters who received mail-in ballots they did not request were forced to vote by provisional ballots. Those provisional ballots won't be tallied until Thursday's deadline for mail-in ballots passes and it's clear what vote-by-mail ballots were returned. Ocean County poll workers told several voters the provisional ballots may not be tallied for up to two weeks.

The Ocean County election results site was reporting 30,453 mail-in ballots were tallied as of 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.

"While the polls closed four hours ago, the race is too close to call and there will not be a result tonight," Zack Carroll, Kim's campaign manager, said in a statement early Wednesday. "There are still tens of thousands ballots that need to be counted, many of which are from voters in Burlington County. We are confident that when all the votes are properly counted, Andy will be declared the winner."

Coming into Tuesday's election, the race between MacArthur and Kim was rated a toss-up by the Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball, according to Ballotpedia. Polling consistently has had MacArthur and Kim neck-and-neck.

On Halloween, when Kim and MacArthur squared off in a televised debate on NJTV, Monmouth University pollster and political analyst Patrick Murray said the race could be a bellwether for how the other House of Representatives races will go, and whether voters would repudiate Trump's policies by ousting Republicans. And in many races across the country, Democrats did take House seats away from Republicans; the Democrats are projected to have a majority in the House once all the races are settled.

RELATED: 2018 Election Results: Vote A Referendum On 'Trump's GOP'

Trump's name was barely mentioned during the 3rd District campaign by either candidate. His policies and MacArthur's support of two key ones — repealing the Affordable Care Act, and the tax reform law — have been front-and-center, however, with Kim stressing a provision that would have removed protections for those with pre-existing conditions. MacArthur is the only member of the New Jersey congressional delegation to vote in favor of those policies and played a key role in amending the GOP hard-line ACA repeal, a fact Kim repeated often. MacArthur has defended the tax vote by saying constituents in the 3rd District won't be harmed by the loss of the deduction for state and local taxes; studies have supported that statement. The Affordable Care Act repeal effort failed, MacArthur noted during the debate.

While the two candidates avoided uttering Trump's name, plenty of voters saw it differently.

In one polling location, some shouted out, "Dump Trump!" while others walked in right beside them and excitedly said they think Trump is doing an excellent job.

"We are total Republicans and Trump has done everything right. We're voting for Hugin," said New Jersey resident Lorraine Luzzo, 82, with her husband, Louis.

"The economy is doing well, there are jobs, patriotism is back in our country," she said.

Others had clearly different views.

"President Dump, as I call him, is hands-down the worst president we've had in a long time," said New Jersey resident Steve Laspina, 64. "He is ... an embarrassment to our country. I'm embarrassed by his racist policies and what he says."

"I agree!" said a woman walking by. "He is immoral, he's terrible."

Kim, 36, who was a foreign policy adviser to General David Petraeus, has been attacked repeatedly on what MacArthur has said is "puffing up" his resume, and criticized for spending his career working in government.

MacArthur, 58, is seeking his third term; he first was elected in 2014, when he defeated Democrat Aimee Belgard by nearly 18,000 votes. In 2016, he defeated Democrat Frederick John Lavergne by more than 67,000 votes. The 3rd District voted heavily in favor of Trump in the 2016 presidential election. However, the 3rd District voted in favor of Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, so the district, made up of parts of Ocean and Burlington counties, can be won by either party.

MAJOR ELECTIONS

The races that were on all ballots in New Jersey were those for senator and 12 members of the House of Representatives (See also: New Jersey Elections: Everything You Need To Know).

REAL-TIME RESULTS

Now that everyone's presumably cast their votes, the question on everyone's mind is: So who won?

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With reporting by Carly Baldwin, Patch staff

Patch file photo by Renee Schiavone