{"id":17603,"date":"2025-06-11T05:28:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=17603"},"modified":"2025-06-11T05:30:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:30:46","slug":"rare-lavallette-council-primary-ends-in-win-for-gop-backed-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2025\/06\/rare-lavallette-council-primary-ends-in-win-for-gop-backed-candidates\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare Lavallette Council Primary Ends in Win for GOP-Backed Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lavallette<\/a>

Lavallette Borough Hall (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

On a barrier island where it is more common for candidates to run unopposed than fend off primary challenges, a last-minute political split prompted by the untimely passing of a beloved councilman caused division was decided Tuesday at the polls.<\/p>\n

On paper, Councilman Robert Lamb, who died suddenly last month<\/a>, won the Republican primary election Tuesday. His opponent was his widow, who ran a snap write-in campaign after the party appointed a political newcomer<\/a>, George Shenewolf, to take her husband\u2019s seat on the dais. Karen Lamb had sought to fill that seat, and announced the write-in effort shortly after Shenewolf, a member of the borough\u2019s planning board, was sworn into office.<\/p>\n

Robert Lamb \u201cwon\u201d the primary election, with Shenewolf the presumed candidate whose name will appear on the November ballot in his stead. Though the names of write-in candidates are generally not publicly sorted on election night, it appears Karen Lamb received about 205 votes, considering no other candidates signaled interest in a write-in campaign. Robert Lamb received 310 votes, and incumbent GOP councilman Michael Stogdill \u2013 who ran unopposed \u2013 received 331 votes.<\/p>\n

No petitions were filed by Democrats to run for office in Lavallette, though write-in Democrats won 29 votes. It is unknown if the party will field a candidate for the general election.<\/p>\n

In other corners of the island, there were no surprises.<\/p>\n

The only Democrats to officially seek office island-wide were in Seaside Park, where Kathleen Spadafino and Thomas Joseph won the nomination unopposed with 122 and 113 votes each, respectively. The Seaside Park council is currently an all-Republican body, with incumbent Councilwoman Gina Condos receiving 274 votes and Joseph Toth winning 252 votes to represent the GOP.<\/p>\n

In Seaside Heights, no Democrats sought seats on the council. Incumbent Republicans Richard Tompkins and Vito Ferrone won 159 votes and 140 votes, respectively, and will appear on November\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a barrier island where it is more common for candidates to run unopposed than fend off primary challenges, a last-minute political split prompted by the untimely passing of a beloved councilman caused division was decided Tuesday at the polls. On paper, Councilman Robert Lamb, who died suddenly last month, won the Republican primary election […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[1959,2893,2915,29],"class_list":["post-17603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lavallette-government","category-lavallette","tag-featured","tag-george-shenewolf","tag-karen-lamb","tag-lavallette-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/DSC_0386.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-4zV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17603"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17607,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17603\/revisions\/17607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}