Rodrick wins Toms River mayoral primary, unseating incumbent mayor

Hill currently in third place behind Rodrick, Ambrosio

By Joey Fox, June 06 2023 9:42 pm

Toms River Councilman Daniel Rodrick has won the Republican primary for mayor of Toms River off-the-line, unseating incumbent Mayor Mo Hill in New Jersey's eighth-largest town, the New Jersey Globe projects.

As of 11:30 p.m., Rodrick has 46% of the vote, well ahead of Geri Ambrosio's 28% and Hill's 21%; a fourth candidate, Robert Bianchini, got the remaining 5%.

Rodrick's council running mates – Craig Coleman, Thomas Nivison, and Lynn O’Toole – are won the race for three at-large council seats. They defeated incumbent Councilmen Kevin Geoghegan, Joshua Kopp, Matthew Lotano, who ran on Hill's slate, as well as Ambrosio's three running mates.

Rodrick, a former Democrat, has served on the council since 2018. He previously ran for mayor in 2019, but was defeated by Hill, who managed to win despite not getting the county GOP organizational line.

This year, Hill and his running mates had the line, something that was far from a guarantee even though they were the incumbents. At the Ocean GOP convention in March, a Hill-affiliated GOP club survived a challenge from a rival club by just seven votes; had the other club won that vote, Ambrosio almost certainly would have gotten the county line.

Although the overall county party was backing Hill, though, he remains at odds with county GOP chairman George Gilmore, who is a longtime Ambrosio ally.

Much of the primary campaign revolved around development, and specifically Orthodox Jewish development, a hugely contentious topic in Ocean County towns abutting the majority-Orthodox township of Lakewood.

Hill explicitly worked to tie Ambrosio to Toms River's small-but-growing Orthodox community, and Rodrick similarly said he would fight against "Lakewood-style development" if elected mayor. The tactics drew strong pushback from Ambrosio and her allies, including Gilmore, who said such rhetoric was "antisemitic" and "[has] no place in our party."

Evidently, though, the battle between Ambrosio and Hill ignored the true threat in the race. Given Toms River's strong Republican lean, Rodrick is favored in the general election against Democrat John Furey, and is likely to be the township's next mayor.