A few months ago, Anthony M. Bucco told a gathering of Morris County Republicans that his wish was for no contested primaries this year.

Incumbents hate primaries, but that wasn’t Bucco’s only motivation.

The now state Sen. Bucco said he was concerned about Republicans beating each other up in nasty primaries instead of concentrating on beating Democrats in the fall.

He seems to have gotten his wish.

Monday’s filing deadline arrived at 4 p.m. and it looks like there will be no contested GOP legislative primaries in Morris. One says “looks like” because there could be last-minute filings not yet recorded by state officials, especially during these difficult and quite different times.

But as it now stands, Bucco is the only GOP candidate for Senate in LD-25 and Aura Dunn is the party’s only candidate for Assembly. Both of these are special elections made necessary by the death of Anthony
R. Bucco last fall, the father of the current senator.

Democrats do not have a primary either; their candidates are Rupande Metha for Senate and Darcy Draeger for Assembly. Mehta beat two other candidates on March 15 to win the county committee endorsement in an on-line convention; Draeger ran unsuccessfully last year for Assembly.

Morris Republicans for years have been known for contested and depending on your point of view, entertaining primaries. Not too long ago, whoever won the Republican primary was assured of election in the fall, but Democrats are now more competitive than they’ve been in the past. Those who doubt that need only realize that the two House members representing all of Morris County (Tom Malinowski and Mikie Sherrill) are Democrats.

So there is more pressure on Republicans to be united throughout the election cycle. Of course, we really don’t know if uncontested primaries this year are because of the need for unity or the ongoing pandemic. Clearly, it’s not an easy year to campaign.

Moving up the ticket, Republicans executed some nifty footwork a few months ago when Rosemary Becchi, who planned to seek the CD-7 congressional seat, relocated – figuratively – to run in CD-11.

That avoided a primary fight with Tom Kean Jr. in CD-7.

So it will be Becchi against Sherrill and Kean against Malinowski this fall.