In Edison, they saw red but stayed blue

Though Edison has been a Democratic stronghold for decades, Antonia Ricigliano heard a constant message from residents as she worked the campaign trail this year.

"A number of people told me, "I will vote for you, but I will not vote for Jon Corzine,' " recalled Ricigliano, a Democrat who was elected Edison's mayor Tuesday.

Ricigliano's victory was expected in the state's fifth-largest town, where residents haven't picked a Republican mayor for 50 years.

But the two-term councilwoman won despite a surprise in the governor's race: Republican Chris Christie garnered nearly 1,000 more votes than Corzine in Edison, en route to his upset victory over the incumbent Democrat.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 25,500 to 6,000 in Edison, a sprawling suburb of 100,000 residents. Corzine even made an appearance in the town last week at a rally for Ricigliano.

But residents there may have followed Tuesday's statewide trend: voting for Christie to dump Corzine, the man blamed for the state's rising taxes.

"A lot of people in Edison worry about property taxes, and they didn't see movement under Corzine," Ingrid Reed, a political analyst for the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, said yesterday. "Maybe they thought change would be a good thing."

Not completely.

Bolstered by Christie, many Republicans crept into office across the state, including Middlesex County. Middlesex Borough, another traditionally Democratic town, elected a Republican mayor and shifted control of the town council to the GOP. Republicans also regained control in South Plainfield and took seats on the councils in South Brunswick and East Brunswick.

Republicans in Edison believed this was their best shot in years to break through the Democratic grip in Edison. The local Democratic party has been split for the last few years, culminating in a bruising primary battle in which Ricigliano upset incumbent Mayor Jun Choi for the party's mayoral nomination. And the GOP's candidate, town planning board chairman Dennis Pipala, a longtime independent with ties to Choi, hoped to convert disenchanted Democrats.

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