As November’s General Assembly elections approach, the New Jersey Globe will highlight several of the state’s most competitive legislative races. After starting with the 8th legislative district, we continue today with the 11th in Monmouth County.
There are few battlegrounds more consistently competitive than the 11th legislative district.
In 2021, popular state Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch) and his Democratic districtmates expected to win re-election to Trenton, but Republicans Marilyn Piperno and Kim Eulner flipped the Assembly seats, while Gopal hung on narrowly to his state Senate seat. In 2023, Gopal was focused on returning to Trenton with new partners, and he helped Donlon and Peterpaul defeat the Republican incumbents.
The pair made some history when they arrived in Trenton: Donlon, a doctor and former Ocean Township Councilwoman, became the first female physician elected to the Legislature; Peterpaul, a municipal court judge, was the state’s first openly lesbian legislator. This year, they face Republicans who seek to return the district to GOP hands: former Neptune City Mayor Andrew Wardell and commercial real estate professional Jessica Ford.
Democrats are confident in their chances of retaining the 11th, but Republicans have highlighted the Monmouth County district as one of a handful within reach should the state environment shift right under Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign for governor. Ciattarelli won the district by a little more than 2 points in 2021, and though Gopal won by some 20 points in 2023, the margin for Donlon and Peterpaul was a few points slimmer.
Republicans hope Ciattarelli’s candidacy can help ignite the low- and medium-propensity GOP voters who might not typically vote in off-year elections, thus assisting challengers like Wardell and Ford. A Democratic strategist, meanwhile, said state Democrats have assisted their candidates in fundraising and campaign operations, and believe light spending from Republicans will help Donlon and Peterpaul keep their seats.
Donlon and Peterpaul have the support of the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which ranked them as two of 12 “Spotlight” candidates in New Jersey this year, and the incumbents have also received a small collection of key endorsements.
A Republican strategist described the 11th as a “Jekyll and Hyde district,” depending on whether Gopal is on the ballot. The Democrats understand that and have included him in their messaging when possible. They tout the trio’s constituent services office when knocking on doors; they say the 11th has some of the best constituent services in the state, work they hope will help them secure another term.
“We have, I think, the best constituent services group in the state,” Peterpaul said. “We respond to our citizens, we respond to the constituents, and get things done. So I’m optimistic, but I’m not going to take anything for granted.”
Gopal, also the campaign chair of Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s (D-Montclair) campaign for governor, cut an ad backing Donlon and Peterpaul, one of several TV spots the campaign has launched.
While the Democrats might not have Gopal on the ticket this year, they have something their Republican opponents don’t: a lot of money. In the most recent round of financial disclosures, the Democrats reported spending some $950k on their re-election effort, a sum that doesn’t include spending from outside groups, like a Democratic Assembly PAC that spent $60k on internet ads. The GOP ticket, meanwhile, had spent about $50k.
“Unfortunately, my campaign is not the beneficiary of being the incumbents, and therefore the generating of revenue is limited because people aren’t quite sure,” Wardell said. “They don’t necessarily want to gamble on something that they’re not sure is going to pay off.”
Wardell grew up around local politics. He minored in political science in college, and his father, Ronald, served as mayor of Neptune City for a few years in the 1990s. Andrew, sure enough, would serve as mayor from 2020 to 2023; he lost re-election by 17 votes to Democrat Rachel McGreevy, who benefited from Gopal at the helm of the ticket.
Before running for public office, Wardell had been practicing a different type of politics for some two decades as a bartender at Kelly’s Tavern, an iconic Jersey Shore haunt in Neptune City. During each shift as mayor of the bar, he met locals, tourists, people from all walks of life.
“I think it serves me very well as a public official,” Wardell said. “Knowing how to listen to people, and try to treat people with compassion, and have some empathy, and be able to help people.”
The bartending didn’t last forever. After taking a high school teaching job, he started working just one shift on Saturdays and retired from the bar a few months into his stint as mayor.
“Bartending in the same one-square-mile town that you’re also the mayor of was a little odd,” Wardell said. “People knew I was there, so they’d come to see me there, and I would try to explain, ‘I’m working right now, here’s my number.’”
Wardell admits a fundraising disparity makes it difficult to scale up a campaign. He said that while running for mayor of Neptune City, he knocked on the door of virtually every voter in the city. That’s doable for local elections like Neptune City’s when some 1,500 people vote, but not as much in a legislative district where 75,000 people are expected to fill out a ballot. Instead, their campaign is forced to embrace social media and help from Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli when he comes to town.
“You try to get to as many doors as possible to talk to as many people as possible, but you can’t reach everybody like I could when I was in a small municipality,” he said. “I think the biggest difference that I’ve noticed here is in terms of your reach, how you go about reaching people. You’re going to be reliant on social media a lot to get your message out, and it’s really important that people hear and see your messages.”
Jessica Ford, Wardell’s running mate, worked with former Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini’s nonprofit as an education specialist, working in local schools on issues like bullying prevention before eventually transitioning to commercial real estate. Ford first ran for public office last year, losing a Neptune Township Committee race.
She said that in addition to her work in education and real estate, her identity gives her a unique perspective.
“What makes me a little different and unique is that I am an African American woman on the Republican ticket in Monmouth County. So I’m sure there’s others like myself, but it’s not really common,” she said.
The 11th, just like every other race in the state, is dominated by debates over affordability. Ford has incorporated her real estate experience to push for opportunity zones, which would incentivize investment in distressed areas of the state.
“There’s a lot of opportunity to really repurpose distressed assets or really look at vacant space,” Ford said.
On affordability, Donlon and Peterpaul touted property relief legislation passed during their first term, including Stay NJ, a property tax relief program intended to help senior homeowners. While they tout the property tax relief legislation, they acknowledge that more needs to be done to help lighten the load off of New Jerseyans, including education funding reform.
“More needs to be done, and we’re looking at different areas in which we can address that,” Peterpaul said. “We’ve worked on school funding; there are pending bills that Margie and I are [sponsoring] to demand more transparency with the Department of Education so that we know where money is being spent. And we’ve talked about this incessantly: There needs to be shared services amongst our schools.”
Wardell, like many Assembly candidates on both sides of the aisle, wants a full redo of the state’s school funding formula, arguing it lacks transparency and has led to severe, arbitrary cuts for some school districts.
“[We] need to fix the funding formula for schools,” Wardell said. “I think that is probably the number one driver, at least recently, of the increase in taxes.”
The 11th also features a third-party candidate, Felicia Simmons, who is running under the We the People banner. Simmons, a progressive outsider, won’t win a seat, but she is still campaigning throughout the district, and her presence could make a difference if margins are slim.
The Democratic and Republican candidates have embraced bipartisanship and problem-solving, making for a relative tranquility compared to the bitterness of the gubernatorial race. Gopal’s ad, for example, says the race “isn’t about Republicans and Democrats.” Many observers believe the odds of a Republican majority in the Assembly are slim; regardless, Wardell said he’ll be ready no matter what the chamber’s composition looks like come January.
“I realize that if I’m fortunate enough to get elected, [there’s a] good possibility I’m still going to be in a pretty big minority as a Republican in the state of New Jersey,” Wardell said. “But that doesn’t mean that I can’t work with my Democratic colleagues to do good things for New Jersey.”
