The numbers from Tuesday showed the potential for a close general election in the U.S. Senate contest, and despite all the hand-wringing around him, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) possesses some distinct numerical advantages in a county by county size-up.

Still, there is opportunity for Republican Bob Hugin.

Unofficially Menendez received 256,164 votes to Hugin’s 166,292 votes statewide, the losses he sustained to Lisa McCormick in Republican counties more than offset by the pluralities he got in Hudson, Essex and Bergen.

Here’s a telltale close election sign: Hugin received 22,178 votes in Republican voter-rich Ocean County. Menendez received 28,519 in his home base of Hudson.

Hugin beat Menendez in Somerset, increasingly a bellwether county in the Trump era: 9,855 to 8,230 (McKormick also beat Menendez in Somerset, incidentally).

Menendez handily defeated Hugin in Middlesex: 19,155 to 8,119.

That was a county where Christie, running as a populist Republican, beat Jon Corzine by four points in 2009, after having posted similar differentials in the primary that year: 17,265 to 9,552. Of course, President Donald J. Trump adds a new wrinkle. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat him in Middlesex 193K to 123K.

But in a nonpresidential election year, the Middlesex numbers will look more like 2009, and that, examined alongside Tuesday’s primary results – affirms the big Central Jersey county as a key battleground this year.