Woodbridge Republicans Endorse Rik Mehta In NJ 6 Midterm Race

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — The 2022 midterm election in New Jersey's Sixth Congressional District is shaping up to be a very interesting race:

This part of Central Jersey has long been represented by Frank Pallone, a Democrat, who has been the Sixth District Congressman for the past 34 years.

The Sixth District stretches from Carteret and Woodbridge into Edison, New Brunswick and down to Asbury Park. It includes many Raritan Bay towns, including Aberdeen, Matawan, Hazlet, Union Beach, Keansburg, North Middletown and Sea Bright.

For decades, this area was considered a blue-collar district, with most of its residents working in factories. However, as the factories closed, those jobs have been replaced by IT industries, with a surge of new immigrants moving in in the past 20 years, particularly Asian and Indian residents.

This year, Democrat Pallone will be challenged by several Republicans: Tom Toomey, Gregg Mele, Sue Kiley and Rik Mehta.

Kiley is a Monmouth County Commissioner who lives in Hazlet. Mele is a lawyer and Toomey is a millennial who has worked for Thompson Reuters, Samsung and Workforce.

Mehta is a small-business owner who recently moved to 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.

This week, Mehta was endorsed by the Woodbridge Republican Party chairman John Vrtaric. Vrtaric said he chose Mehta as the best Republican candidate to take on Pallone.

However, the Woodbridge Republican Party did not choose a candidate yet; this is only Vrtaric's personally endorsed candidate. This is significant because Woodbridge has a heavily weighted representation at the upcoming Middlesex County convention, according to Insider NJ.

All four will duke it out in the Republican primary, which is June 7.

Here is Rik's website: https://rikfornj.com/

Kiley's https://suekiley.com/

Toomey's: https://toomeyforcongress.com/

Mele's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gmlaw...

And Pallone's Congressional page: https://pallone.house.gov/

You can watch Kiley speak in this five-minute campaign video released in January, where she criticized the direction the country has gone in one year into Biden's presidency, citing problems of illegal immigration, skyrocketing inflation and the drug addiction crisis, which she said was made worse under pandemic lockdowns.

In the last midterms, in 2020, Pallone defeated a Republican immigrant from Nigeria who challenged him, Christian Onuoha, but only by 73,000 votes: Pallone got 199,648 votes and Onuoha got 126,760.

Political watchers nationwide predict the 2022 midterms could spell danger for sitting Democrats. They also point to the very narrow victory Gov. Murphy had against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli this past fall.

Who will Republican voters in Central Jersey choose this June?

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