Former NJ Congressman Mike Pappas
Update: Somerset County Republicans awarded the organization line for State Senate in the 16th district to former Rep. Michael Pappas. The Assembly candidates on the line will be Manville Councilman Joe Lukac and Hunterdon Central Regional Board of Education President Vincent Panico.
By David Wildstein, New Jersey Globe
Michael Pappas, a former one-term congressman from Somerset County, will be the Republican candidate for State Senate in the 16th legislative district.
Pappas has decided to run for the open seat of Republican State Sen. Christopher Bateman, who announced last month that he would not seek re-election to a fifth term.
He is now the presumptive nominee after two other candidates, former Rep. Dick Zimmer and former Montgomery Mayor Ted Maciag, withdrew from the race today, party officials told the New Jersey Globe.
Pappas will run with the endorsement of Tim Howes, the Somerset County Republican chairman.
The 60-year-old Pappas was a political boy wonder in the early 1980s.
He was elected to the Franklin Township Council at age 21, became mayor at 22, and a Somerset County freeholder at age 24.
His time in Congress ended abruptly in 1998 after he went on the House floor and sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Kenneth Starr” in support of a special prosecutor investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton. The stunt backfired on Pappas, who lost 50%-47% to a virtually unknown Democrat, Rush Holt.
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