Former Salem County Republican Chairman Fran Grenier has made a political comeback, ousting an incumbent in a race for GOP State Committeeman this morning.

Grenier, whose 2017 bid to unseat Senate President Steve Sweeney triggered what may be the most expensive legislative race in American history, ousted Rob Zuest in a 27-9 landslide.

Another former county chair, Linda DuBois, was elected State Committeewoman; she replaces Joan Merlino, who did not seek re-election.

Zuest, the Pittsgrove GOP municipal chairman, unseated incumbent Michael Mulligan in 2021.  Under a new state law approved this year, voters no longer elect state committee members; instead, they are chosen by a vote of the county committee.

The New Jersey Republican State Committee is made up of one man and one woman from each of the 21 counties.  Salem, the state’s smallest county, has the same number of votes as Bergen.  Democrats allocate their state committee seats by population.

The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) spent nearly $5 million to help Grenier defeat Sweeney that year.  Grenier received just 41% of the vote – the weakest showing by any Republican against Sweeney.

Republican Freeholder Bob Vanderslice lost by seven points, leaving the GOP a narrow 3-2 control of county government. But five days before Christmas, Freeholder Melissa DeCastro said she was switching parties – flipping control to the Democrats. Sweeney helped engineer DeCastro’s party switch.

Salem had been politically competitive for years. Donald Trump won it with 55% of the vote in 2016, but Barack Obama carried it with 49.7% in 2012 and 50.8% in 2008. It went for Jeff Bell (51%) in his 2014 U.S. Senate race against Cory Booker, but also for Bob Menendez (52%) in 2012. Chris Christie won it twice, as Jon Corzine carried the county in 2005.

After DuBois, a former Pittsgrove mayor, succeeded Grenier, Salem became a solidly red county.  Republicans won majority control of the Salem County Board of Commissioners in 2018 and held on to the County Clerk’s office after a competitive race in 2019.   Republicans carried Salem in the 2018 and 2020 U.S. Senate races, both times against incumbent Democrats.

Weeks after Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) switched parties, DuBois endorsed him for re-election to a second term.  Van Drew won 70% of the vote in the 2020 GOP primary and carried Salem by 3,395 votes against Democrat Amy Kennedy in the general election.

Jack Ciattarelli carried Salem County by a landslide 5,727-vote margin, a 62%-35% margin over Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.  Four years ago, Murphy lost Salem by just 815 votes.

In 2021, Republicans swept the 3rd legislative district, with Ed Durr (R-Logan) ousting Sweeney and the GOP picking up two Assembly seats.

Ciattarelli’s margin in Salem was 1,466 more than Murphy’s was in heavily Democratic Passaic County, which has eight times as many voters.

The only Republican loss in Salem came in 2020 when Bethanne McCarthy Patrick came within 801 votes of unseating veteran Democratic Surrogate Nickie Burke.

DuBois retired at the end of 2021 and was succeeded by Linwood Donelson III, who is undefeated in countywide races.