Moshe Raitzik did not win a seat on the Lakewood Township Committee in Tuesday's general election.
But a closer examination of the election results reveals another noteworthy development: Raitzik received more votes than he did when he successfully ran for the Lakewood Board of Fire Commissioners just one year ago, while substantially increasing his share of the vote compared with his previous Township Committee campaign in 2024.
The results add another chapter to FAA News' ongoing analysis of Lakewood's changing political landscape and the electoral strength of candidates challenging established political leadership.
In November 2024, Raitzik ran for Lakewood Township Committee during the presidential election which brought substantially greater participation.
He received 13,552 votes, representing 17.28% of all votes cast for candidates in that contest.
Raitzik was unsuccessful.
Fast-forward one year.
In November 2025, Raitzik ran for the Lakewood Board of Fire Commissioners, receiving 9,001 votes, and winning a seat on the Board.
Now fast-forward to Tuesday's election.
Raitzik again sought a Township Committee seat.
This time, he received 9,170 votes.
He did not win.
Nevertheless, two comparisons are particularly noteworthy.
FIRST: RAITZIK RECEIVED MORE VOTES THAN IN HIS SUCCESSFUL 2025 CAMPAIGN.
Last year, 9,001 voters supported Raitzik in the Fire Commissioner election.
This year, he received 9,170 votes for Township Committee.
That's an increase of 169 votes.
Of course, these were different offices with different candidates and ballot structures. The increase does not necessarily mean the same voters supported him in both elections.
But the numbers demonstrate that his 2026 candidacy attracted a slightly larger raw vote total than his winning campaign one year earlier.
SECOND: RAITZIK INCREASED HIS SHARE OF THE TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE VOTE
This is perhaps the more significant comparison because it involves the same elected office.
In 2024, Raitzik received 17.28% of the votes cast for Township Committee candidates.
In 2026, he received 21.56%.
That represents a gain of 4.28 percentage points.
And this happened despite the substantial decline in total votes cast for Township Committee candidates compared with the presidential election two years earlier.
Raitzik's raw vote total therefore declined from his presidential-year showing, but his proportion of the Township Committee vote increased.
FAA News has been following Lakewood's electoral trends for several years.
In November 2024, FAA News reported on Raitzik's first Township Committee campaign and the more than 13,000 votes he received.
In November 2025, our election analysis examined the growing vote total received by Republican Assembly candidate Ned Thomson in his contests against Assemblyman Avi Schnall.
Thomson received 3,504 votes in Lakewood in 2023, compared with 15,537 in 2025 — an increase of 12,033 votes.
That result drew attention to the number of residents supporting candidates who opposed Schnall, although the difference in election turnout and the broader partisan environment complicates any direct comparison.
And in June 2026, Raitzik finished ahead of incumbent Deborah Fuentes in the Republican primary by approximately 440 votes, securing his place on the November ballot.
The general election produced a different result, with Fuentes finishing ahead of Raitzik.
Taken together, these elections illustrate that Lakewood's political contests are attracting substantial votes for candidates running against particular incumbents or established leadership groups.
They do not, by themselves, establish that all those voters belong to one unified opposition movement. Voters can support different candidates for different reasons, and Raitzik himself has received support from different political constituencies across his campaigns.
Nevertheless, the increasing share of the Township Committee vote that Raitzik received between 2024 and 2026 is a measurable development.
There is no disputing Tuesday's outcome.
Raitzik lost the Township Committee election. Coles and Fuentes finished ahead of him.
But election results can tell more than one story.
For residents following Lakewood's evolving political landscape, the figures are worth watching.
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