On top of their toils, Somerset Democrats for years had to endure the added indignity of reading the words “long suffering” in front of their press-referenced organization, as if consigned to heartbreak, if not Sisyphean doom.

But that changed during the Trump era, when the local golf course-based game show host turned president doubled down on nativist diatribes, offending the tolerant traditions of this Central Jersey spill-zone politically defined by the likes of Christie Todd Whitman and Ray and Kip Bateman and prompting voters to look beyond the GOP. Whitman and Bateman never had any use for Trump, the former governor appearing virtually at the 2020 Democratic Convention in support of Democrat Joe Biden, and Bateman opting out of running for reelection this year to the state senate seat he won in 2007.

Hungry Democrats took over the county, grabbing a 3-2 majority in 2019, then finishing the job with a sweep a year later, leaving a very muscled-up Somerset County Democratic Committee Chairwoman Peg Schaffer to insist that her organization finally receive the respect it earned over years in the vineyards.

That’s why the organization does not want to merely fold in to support the Middlesex-based Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker (D-16) for Bateman’s senate seat.

If Zwicker were to win, Middlesex would claim six senators crowded into its borders, and five of them Democrats: Greenstein, Smith, Diegnan, Vitale, Thompson (R), and Zwicker, while depriving Somerset, again long that reliable butt of Democratic Party jokes. InsiderNJ remembers mentioning Schaffer’s quest for a prosecutor during the Corzine years to a state party representative, who said with a dismissive laugh, “Somerset.”

Schaffer remembers, too, which is why she means business.

“We are open to a multi-county ticket,” she said, ahead of a scheduled March 4th county convention.

But she has one simple expectation.

“Somerset needs the senate seat,” the chair said.

Short of Zwicker moving from Middlesex into Somerset, a primary fight will ensue.

“We’re not done,” Schaffer said of negotiations, and remains positive about some kind of power-sharing agreement that includes the impacted turfs (Middlesex, Somerset, Mercer and Hunterdon).

But the chair was adamant about Somerset having senatorial courtesy.

“History is a big part of it,” she said. “Somerset has had the seat for 100 years. We need an advocate for uniquely Somerset issues, including transportation, one-seat ride, judges the Highlands. Also, we’ve earned a seat at the table. If we allowed another county to claim the senator, that person’s first loyalty would be to the other county.

“We fought hard for 20 years to get control, and ceding courtesy would not be good,” Schaffer said.

Democrats screened candidates the other night and the talk is that Vice Chair Zenon Christodoulou is primed to run if the parties in question can’t reach an agreement, which for Schaffer would require Zwicker to uproot to Somerset.