Tobacco, Heffernan, Capone Declare Victory In Middletown BOE Race

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — Our lead is insurmountable.

That's the message from the 1,2,3/Putting Children First slate of Jacqueline Tobacco, Frank Capone and Harmony "Barry" Heffernan in this year's Middletown Board of Education race.

The slate was leading in early returns Tuesday night. But by Friday afternoon their lead started looking more like a landslide; current board members Nick DiFranco, Pam Rogers and Robin Stella are facing an incredibly steep uphill climb to hold onto their seats.

"It's basically impossible for anyone to catch up to us at this point. Election results keep trending in the same direction and expanding our lead; there is no reason to believe with 73 percent reported that this will change," Capone told Patch Friday afternoon. "This is a historical, record-breaking election and we thank the voters of Middletown for putting their trust and faith in us."

Putting Children First ran on a platform of getting kids back in school as fast as possible during COVID and was also highly critical of lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter march held on school grounds this summer.

It appears to have been a winning strategy in Republican-leaning Middletown.

As of Friday, here are the results:

• Frank CAPONE 11,374
• Jacqueline TOBACCO 11,202
• Harmony 'Barry' HEFFERNAN 10,073
• Nicholas A. DiFRANCO 6,838
• Robin STELLA 6,548
• Pamela ROGERS 6,358
• Kelly BRODIN 6,072
• Pam SMITH 6,043
• Patricia REED 5,853
• Raymond JANKOWSKI 3,502

2020 also saw an unprecedented number of Middletown residents vote in the school board race, but keep in mind turnout is always much higher in a presidential election year. In 2017, the most recent BOE race, there were about 34,500 votes: Rogers, DiFranco and Stella won, with Rogers getting 5,452, Stella 5,264 and DiFranco 4,838 votes.

This year, 73,917 votes were counted, and all the votes aren't even in yet. As of Friday night, 80 percent of Monmouth County's votes had been counted. There are about 66,700 residents in Middletown; a voter can make three votes for Board of Ed.

In fact, Capone, the top highest vote-getter so far, currently has 4,500 more votes than DiFranco, meaning Capone is winning by almost as many votes as DiFranco received in total three years ago.

Rogers, Stella, DiFranco and the other candidates did not give a comment when Patch asked.

"We will reserve comment on the results until every vote is counted," said Rogers on Tuesday night.

"It really has been a long road and we are completely humbled by the voter turnout and the numbers," said Tobacco in a Facebook video.

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