Looking At Assembly Results

Somebody wanted to know how the voting went for the District 22 Assembly seats. According to unofficial results on nj.com, Jerry Green received 23,079 votes; Linda Stender, 23,160; John Campbell, 18,769; Jeffrey First, 16,911. Just in Plainfield, unofficial results from the City Clerk's office showed totals of 4,470 for Green, 4,599 for Stender, 2,452 for Campbell and 1,784 for First. Green and Stender are incumbent Democrats. Campbell and First are Republicans

Although voters could pick any two of the four candidates, by the end of the campaign season it appeared to be a contest between Green and Campbell. Locally, Campbell received a little more than half what Green received, but district-wide the gap was only 4,310 votes, or about 19 percent, if the nj.com figures are to be believed.

Considering that Plainfield had only 887 registered Republicans going into the general election, Campbell picked up a lot of votes from somewhere else. There were 13,226 Democrats and 7,879 unaffiliated voters on the Union County Board of Elections' voter registration summary for Oct. 20, 2013. It appears that only about a third of the Democrats voted for their Assembly candidates.

In 2011, Green received 14,957 votes; Stender, 15,747; Joan Van Pelt, 10,846 and First, 10,092. Just in Plainfield, the totals were Green, 2,808; Stender, 3,193; Van Pelt, 911 and First, 644. Here again, the spread was greater locally than across the district.

These are the numbers - you can look at them any way you want. Official numbers for 2013 will be released next week.

--Bernice