IRVINGTON, NJ — Irvington Mayor Tony Vauss said he’s disappointed by Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, but is proud of how Irvington got out the vote on Election Day to try and her get elected as the nation’s first female president. He said 17,000 of the township’s total 30,000 registered voters went to the polls, with an overwhelming majority of them voting for Clinton.
Clinton won the national popular vote but failed to defeat Trump in the Electoral College. Polls show she fared better in urban areas such as Irvington than Trump, but he managed to win the majority of rural and suburban votes across the country, especially in the battleground states of Florida. Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin.
“I’m proud of my Irvington residents,” said Vauss on Tuesday, No. 15. “They came out to vote. We got nearly 17,000 people voted. Hopefully, we can keep the momentum going and let people know how important elections and their votes are.”
The recent uproar following Trump’s election as president, including protests in major U.S. cities that Clinton won on Election Day, should serve as a reminder of the importance of elections, Vauss said. He also urged New Jersey voters, especially Democrats, to keep those election results in mind when it comes to the 2017 gubernatorial election.
“We have a gubernatorial election coming up and, with Trump being president, he’s probably going to come and campaign for the Republican that’s going to run in New Jersey,” Vauss said. “Everybody has a wait-and-see attitude about Trump and what’s he’s going to do as president but, as far as Irvington, Essex County and all of us here, we’re going to stay motivated.”
East Orange City Council President and 3rd Ward Councilman Ted Green also said there are a lot of lessons to be learned from Trump’s victory against Clinton. Green, who also works as the Irvington Building Department director, has already announced he’s running for re-election in his hometown next year, unless other, better opportunities happen to present themselves.
“I’m a Democrat and I voted for Hillary Clinton, but you have to give it to Trump,” said Green, who managed Vauss’ successful 2014 mayoral campaign, on Tuesday, Nov. 15. “Everybody counted him out. Nobody thought he could win. But then he won and the reason why he won is because he had a simple, clear message and he was speaking for a whole lot of people that everybody else forgot about.”
Green said he wants to make it clear that he is not a fan of the offensive and sometimes seemingly blatantly racist and divisive tactics Trump used to get elected, but said he does understand how that message, as negative as it may be, could resonate with the conservative Republican voter base.
“He told them what they wanted to hear,” Green said. “I don’t agree with him or anything that he did to get elected, but he knew his audience and he stuck to his guns, sometimes almost literally. However, the real message for anyone who watched that presidential election is you never know what can happen in an election. But you’ve got to be in it to win it.”
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