died last month at age 78<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0Cooper won, 346-137, a 72%-28% margin.\u00a0 \u00a0Turnout was 57%.<\/p>\nHer victory came after a two-week campaign that included multiple virtual forums for county committee members to hear from the two candidates.<\/p>\n
The general election contest will be for a full five-year term.\u00a0 In New Jersey, constitutional officer vacancies are filled at a new election, rather than a special election to complete an unexpired term.<\/p>\n
Cooper will enter the general election as the strong favorite in a county where Republicans last won in 1995.<\/p>\n
A Fanwood resident and an official at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, Cooper won support from Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp, Fanwood Mayor Collen Mahr, Assemblyman Vincent Kearny (D-Garwood), Summit Democratic Municipal Chairman Greg Vartan, Springfield Democratic Municipal Chairman Bruce Bergen, and party leaders in Mountainside and Westfield.<\/p>\n
Perkins-Auguste, an at-large member of the Elizabeth City Council since 1993, had the backing of Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage, County Commissioners Stanley Neron and Michele Delisfort, former County Commissioner Sergio Granados, and former State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth).<\/p>\n
Cooper would become the first person of color to serve as Union County clerk. \u00a0Rajoppi, who became clerk in 1995, was the first woman elected to the post.<\/p>\n
Rajoppi\u2019s career in New Jersey government and politics spanned 53 years. \u00a0Before becoming county clerk, she served as mayor of Springfield, a Union County freeholder, acting assistant secretary of state and county register of deeds and mortgages.<\/p>\n
The clerk\u2019s office administers elections, processes passport applications and maintains property, business and other public records.<\/p>\n
Cooper has more than two decades of experience in government, economic development and community affairs. \u00a0Before joining the Economic Development Authority, she was a top policy advisor to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.<\/p>\n
Perkins-Auguste emphasized her three decades in municipal government, including her service as interim business administrator in Perth Amboy during the COVID-19 pandemic and as Hillside\u2019s personnel and human resources director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tahirah \u201cTai\u201d Cooper has defeated Elizabeth Councilwoman Patricia Perkins-Auguste to win the Democratic nomination for Union County clerk.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-324627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}