George Gilmore-back Rob Arace defeated Manchester Mayor Rob Hudak in their head-to-head runoff election on Tuesday.
Hudak and Arace went to a runoff election after neither of them garnered more than 50% of the total vote in the November 8th general election, forcing an automatic re-do between the top two vote-getters and eliminating Democrat Ken Seda, who received the third most votes.
Arace was endorsed and supported up by Gilmore, who was attempting to unseat Hudak following the latter’s unwillingness to support his bid to return to power as Ocean County GOP chairman.
The final vote count was: Rob Arace 51.80% (5,205 votes), Rob Hudak 48.2% (4,843 votes).
Arace’s running mates, who were running for Manchester Township Council, also won their runoff elections, with Joe Hankins and Roxanne Conniff beating Hudak running mates Tim Poss and Joan Brush