At a candidates night last month, incumbent Democratic council members Ed Zipprich and Juanita Lewis criticized the Republican challengers for failing to make an appearance at a single public meeting. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise Tuesday night, when the votes failed to appear for the Republicans.

Zipprich and Lewis defended their seats, besting Mary Grace Cangemi and Joe Mizzi to maintain an all-Democratic lineup on the Red Bank Council. Though early results showed a tightly contested race, the two incumbents won by a healthy margin when all the votes were tallied.

According to the county election results page, Zipprich earned 1,111 votes and Lewis registered 983. In third and fourth place, Cangemi and Mizzi received 875 and 775 votes, respectively. Write-in candidates earned nine votes.

At Democratic headquarters on Front Street, Zipprich and Lewis, in front of a crowd, enthusiastic prior to the revelation that District 11 legislative candidates had been beaten by the Republican incumbents, pledged to continue on with what they started in their first terms on council.

“Red Bank has decided that Ed and I should continue what we started, and that feels really good,” Lewis said. “It’s really about all of you, and us being committed to continuing what we started. The training wheels are off, we’re on a two-wheeler now.”

Attempted to reach both Cangemi and Mizzi were unsuccessful late Tuesday night. Republicans attended a campaign party at the American Hotel in Freehold.

Zipprich said the reelection would allow he and Lewis to continue on with several great ideas. It’s never easy to go through an election, he said, but in the end, it’s what both he and Lewis felt obligated to do.

“Juanita and I sat down this spring and had a very serious conversation about whether we would do this again. We decided there at that lunch that we had a commitment to Red Bank,” he said. “We are very pleased that the democratic system works in Red Bank.”