2018 New Jersey election results — Good night for Democrats

Democrats saw important victories throughout New Jersey Tuesday night as unofficial election results came in from critical races.

The following were among the state's most important races:

• Incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez held onto his seat, despite a well-financed and fierce challenge from Republican Bob Hugin, and despite a corruption trial and ethics violations that earned him an admonishment from the Senate itself.

• New Jersey appears to have supported a ballot measure to allocate $500 million for school construction projects — though it's unclear which districts will get the projects.

• New Jersey Democrats flipped at least three House seats, taking at least 10 in all. As of late Tuesday night, only Republican incumbent Tom MacArthur's challenge from Democrat Andy Kim was too close to call. Notably, Democrats flipped the 2nd District, where Jeff Van Drew took a win over Republican Seth Grossman, who'd been disowned by leadership in his own party for a history of racially charged statements. Mikie Sherrill took the 11th District — meaning for the first time since 1985, North Jersey's 11th Congressional District will be represented by a Democrat.

• New Jersey saw huge participation in by-mail voting, prompted by a Gov. Phil Murphy-signed law that automatically classified residents as vote-by-mail voters if they'd done so in the past few years. Of the roughly 572,000 mail-in ballots sent to voters, nearly 383,000 had been returned as of the start of Election Day, according to the state Division of Elections. And about 70,000 more were returned by Democrats than GOPers.

The following are unofficial results collected by New Jersey 101.5 on Election Night. They don't yet include provisional or all mail-in ballots, which may be received as late as Thursday. They also aren't yet certified results, and a small handful of districts had yet to report by late evening:

U.S. Senate

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and Republican Bob Hugin (AP Photos)

County	Menendez*	Hugin	Others
Atlantic	37,401	40,280	3,065
Bergen	164,037	130,558	8,336
Burlington	82,682	68,793	5,066
Camden	83,738	45,773	4,610
Cape May	14,335	24,509	1,278
Cumberland	16,538	16,825	1,228
Essex	156,805	43,599	4,665
Gloucester	51,004	54,836	4,176
Hudson	118,478	32,603	4,091
Hunterdon	23,150	34,471	2,033
Mercer	67,949	35,445	4,036
Middlesex	121,466	82,276	6,395
Monmouth	107,207	135,619	7,983
Morris	79,790	101,683	5,679
Ocean	74,268	139,524	6,608
Passaic	74,528	51,381	3,913
Salem	8,919	13,530	1,074
Somerset	58,492	52,622	3,705
Sussex	19,949	37,472	2,880
Union	101,631	52,932	4,258
Warren	13,281	22,468	1,755
TOTAL	1,475,648	1,217,199	86,834
Percentage	53.09%	43.79%	3.12%