Rosemary Pino

According to her campaign website, Pino was born to blue-collar immigrant parents from Ecuador and raised in New Jersey by a single mother. She has lived in Clifton for over 30 years and attended Clifton High School.[3][2] She describes herself as a teen mother and high school dropout who earned a GED and then a bachelor's degree in finance from Rutgers University while working multiple jobs.[3][2] Her career began in the Passaic County Community College finance department, and she then joined Passaic County One Stop, a career-development center that teaches résumé and interview skills to unemployed residents. Her campaign website also says she worked as a bank examiner at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.[2][3]

Pino ran unsuccessfully for the Clifton school board in 2011, finishing fifth, and later served two terms on the Clifton Board of Education; Ballotpedia lists her service as 2014 to 2019.[2][3] She was elected to the Clifton City Council in 2018 and has served since 2019; her campaign website says she was the first minority member elected to the council.[3][2]

According to her campaign website, Pino left the Democratic Party and became a Republican.[3][5] She won the June 2, 2026 Republican primary over Tiffany Burress, 51.3% to 48.7%, and the Associated Press called the race for her on June 12, 2026; she faced Democratic Rep. Nellie Pou in the general election.[2][5] She received 31.8% of the vote to Nellie Pou's 66.7%, according to unofficial results reported by NBC News.[1]

Her campaign website says she founded multiple nonprofits, volunteers with Relay for Life, serves on the board of the Theater League of Clifton, and is a PTO president. It says she lives in Clifton with her husband Eric and their 11 children, two of them adopted from foster care.[3]