Montclair’s school board will start 2027 with three new members.
Unofficial Montclair election results show David Moon, Corey Pierson and Richard Reynics winning the three open Board of Education seats on Tuesday, Nov. 3, in a race with no incumbents on the ballot. Voters also chose Mariana Horta to fill the vacant at-large seat on the Township Council and sent Rep. Analilia Mejia and Sen. Cory Booker back to Washington.
Who won the Montclair Board of Education election
Moon and Pierson finished well ahead of the seven-name field. As of early Wednesday, Moon had 6,676 votes and Pierson had 6,324, according to preliminary results.
The third seat is closer. Reynics had 4,702 votes to Ayelet Haran’s 4,496, a gap of 206. Andrew Gideon (3,701), George Simpson (2,922) and Brandie Bookhart (2,519) followed. Bookhart withdrew Sept. 30, but her name stayed on the ballot. Montclair Local has called the race for Moon, Pierson and Reynics.
The winners join a board still steadying after a year of budget turmoil, including a March school tax vote. At The Pod’s candidate forum, Pierson, a tech founder with three children in the district, described the moment that pushed him to run.
“I think like everybody in town woke up and you’re like, $20 million? What is going on here?” he said. “If I’m gonna advocate for local control, maybe I should offer to be part of the solution.”
Moon runs a data analytics firm and has a senior at Montclair High School. Reynics, a financial technology executive, has three children in the district’s elementary schools and served on the Hardyston Township school board in the 2000s.
Their three-year terms begin Jan. 1. The council race, meanwhile, was decided by a wider margin.
Mariana Horta wins Montclair’s at-large council seat
Horta took about 43% of the vote for councilor at large, a seat that represents the whole township. She finished with 5,153 votes to 4,544 for Toni Martin and 2,385 for Kyle Porro.
The seat opened mid-term when Councilwoman Carmel Loughman resigned, which is why it went to a special election. William Harrison held it on an interim basis and did not run. Horta will serve the rest of the term, through June 2028.
A demographer, Horta is a regular at township budget hearings and built her campaign around property taxes. In the Pod’s questionnaire for the at-large candidates, she promised to base decisions on “data, not vibes.”
“I’d push for a multi-year budget plan that shows where costs are heading before the next budget is introduced,” she wrote.
She’ll get her first chance soon. Montclair’s 2027 budget hearings continue Monday, Nov. 9, and the council takes up the budget in the spring.
NJ-11 and U.S. Senate results for Montclair voters
Further up the ballot, Mejia won her first full term in the 11th District Tuesday night. The Democrat took the seat in April’s special election after Mikie Sherrill left Congress to become governor. This time she beat Republican Joe Hathaway, her opponent in April, and Alan Bond, an unaffiliated candidate who ran under the ballot slogan “Hope for Tomorrow.”
Booker won a third full term over Republican Justin Murphy. The Associated Press called the race at 8:01 p.m.
Final margins in both races are still coming in. So are some Montclair ballots.
When Montclair election results become official
Mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day still count if they reach the Essex County Board of Elections by Monday, Nov. 9. Results stay unofficial until the county certifies them.
The new board members take office Jan. 1. State law requires the board to hold its reorganization meeting, where new members are sworn in and the board picks its leadership, between Jan. 1 and Jan. 7. Updated counts will appear on the Essex County Clerk’s election page.
(Photo credit: Vitalii Abakumov/Unsplash)
