Jean Stanfield is an American politician who served in the New Jersey Senate, representing the 8th Legislative District from 2022 to 2024. She previously served in the New Jersey General Assembly, representing the 8th Legislative District from 2020 to 2022. Stanfield served as Sheriff of Burlington County from 2002 to 2019.
First elected Sheriff in 2001, Stanfield was re-elected five times as Sheriff. On February 22, 2019, she announced she would not run for a seventh term in 2019 and would resign as Sheriff on May 1 of that year.
After the 8th District's Senator Dawn Addiego switched her party from Republican to Democrat in early 2019, one of the district's sitting Assemblyman Joe Howarth reportedly attempted to do the same. The Burlington County Republican Party dropped support for Howarth, choosing to instead support former Burlington County Sheriff Stanfield to run with incumbent Ryan Peters. In the primary election Howarth heavily tied himself to President Donald Trump and lost to Stanfield and Peters.
Stanfield, a resident of Westampton Township, and Peters faced off against Democrats Mark Natale and Gina LaPlaca in the general election. Peters and Stanfield won by a little over 1,100 votes.
In the 2021 general election, Stanfield ran for the New Jersey State Senate against incumbent Democrat Dawn Addiego, who had long served in public office as a Republican but switched to the Democratic Party in January 2019. With two weeks left before election day, the race for the three seats in the legislature had already attracted $3 million in spending by the candidates and outside groups. Stanfield narrowly defeated Addiego despite the latterâÂÂs 12-1 fundraising margin.
On January 11, 2023, Stanfield announced that she would not be a candidate for reelection.
Committee assignments for the 2022âÂÂ23 Legislative Session are: