Primary Day In Middlesex County: Races To Watch

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — Residents will be asked to vote Tuesday in the primary election.

The biggest race Middlesex County voters will be asked to vote in is the NJ 6 Congress primary:

Four Republicans seek to take on Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat, this November. The four Republicans are:

• Former Hazlet mayor and current Monmouth County Commissioner Sue Kiley. She is the candidate endorsed by the Middlesex County Republican Party and the Monmouth County Republican Party.
• Lawyer Gregg Mele. He was the 2021 Libertarian Party nominee for NJ governor
• Tom Toomey, a millennial who has worked for Thompson Reuters, Samsung and Workforce. He used to work for the Republican National Committee.
• Rik Mehta, a small-business owner from the Iselin section of Woodbridge. In the past, he ran for U.S. Senate in New Jersey and lost. He is now trying for Congress.

"I know Pallone has supporters, but I don't think he has as many supporters as he had in the past," Kiley told Patch in December when she was first mulling her candidacy.

"NJ 6" stretches from Carteret and Woodbridge into Edison, New Brunswick and down to Asbury Park. It hugs the Raritan Bay coastline, including towns such as Aberdeen, Matawan, Hazlet, North Middletown, Sea Bright and West Long Branch. In 2020, the last time his seat was up for election, Pallone defeated a Republican immigrant from Nigeria who challenged him, Christian Onuoha, with Pallone getting 199,648 votes and Onuoha getting 126,760.

In every presidential election since 2000, NJ's Sixth District has voted for a Democrat for president: Gore, Kerry, Obama twice, Clinton and then Biden. However, political watchers nationwide predict the 2022 midterms could spell danger for sitting Democrats.