The New Jersey Gubernatorial Primary

Yes, of course, there's snark.

Yup, there are 10 candidates: 6 Democrats, one of whom will most likely win in November, and 4 Rethuglicans¹ (thanks for playing). Yes, yes, Chris Christie (R) was governor, but its unlikely New Jersey voters will make that mistake again².

If anyone had asked me who I thought would win in January of this year, I would have said Mikie Sherrill, hands down. Campaign website. But things have changed, and the June 10th primary contest has turned into a really interesting race. Sherrill is an incumbent Congresswoman, and ex-Navy pilot, educated at the Naval Academy, followed by the London School of Economics, and finally a law degree from Georgetown. She’s got the party backing (albeit there is no longer a party line on the ballots, THANK YOU Senator Andy Kim) she announced early, and she should have dispensed her challengers early. But that didn’t happen.

Alphabetically, here’s the rest of the field:

Ras Baraka: Current mayor of Newark, an educator, author and very progressive. Campaign website.

Steve Fulop: Current mayor of Jersey City, Marine-not-currently-on-active-duty³. Campaign website.

Josh Gottheimer: Current member of Congress. If you live in Jersey and Josh is your guy, please check his voting record. Campaign website.

Sean Spiller: Previous mayor of Montclair, educator, former president of the NJEA. Campaign website.

Steve Sweeney: 20 years in the NJ State Senate, rising to Majority Leader and then President of the Senate. Fun fact: He lost re-election in 2021 (51.7-48.3) to a Rethuglican whose previous job was truck driver for Raymour and Flanigan. Steve spent over $300 grand and Durr spent a total of $3,200. More info. When Steve lost, it was a win for every progressive Democrat in the state. (Trust me on this.) Campaign website.

Back in the beginning of the year, I looked at both the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races. In the latter, Abigail Spanberger is our candidate, running unopposed in the primary, she’s both an awesome candidate AND elected official. Great resume, including intelligence work. She has a really good chance in November, especially since the Rethuglicans are in insane disarray. I mean, the current governor is trying to get the sole Lt. Governor candidate to drop out. Read it, it’s fun.

I thought New Jersey would be an equally important, but uneventful campaign. But no.

All of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates are singing from the same hymnal. They all identify the same problems (taxes, housing, education, “getting things done”) and you can see a more detailed comparison here.

To be fair, all of the candidates have experience, and voting records, and bodies of accomplishments. This is not a race where there are idiots running.

So what happened?

New Jersey was always a political party machine state. In fact, the ballots were printed to give a leg up to the endorsed candidates. The candidates who received the endorsements were always party regulars. Here’s a sample party-line ballot, prior to Senator Kim’s successful lawsuit last year.

Most people would just vote the left column and be done. It was an unfair advantage. Remember, MOST voters do NOT know who most of the candidates are. If you don’t believe me, ask 5 random people to name 3 candidates on their primary ballot this spring. If they’re not seriously engaged, they will not know.

So it’s a real race: there are ads, and canvasses, and each candidate has an organization of supporters.

Steve Sweeney is from South Jersey, and has, in my mind, a checkered past of doing things that benefitted himself and his personal constituents, mostly in the building trades and the corporate world. He cut amazing deals. Sigh.

Josh Gottheimer is a great believer in working across the aisle in Congress. Meaning, if you look at where he stands (not what he says, but how he votes) you’ll find out that he’s far more right-wing than any Democrat should be. Deets. His ads are well made, but if you scratch the surface, his approach will be more cuts in services than anything else, to the end of lowering taxes.

Both Ras Baraka and Sean Spiller are coming at the race as members of the working class, dedicated to making things better for ‘regular’ people. Neither has the anger of the members of “The Squad” when they first ran: both are measured, smart, and communicate clearly. The question is whether their message will appeal to the middle class, as opposed to the working class.

And then we come to Steve Fulop. To be honest, I’d never heard of him until he appeared in a campaign ad one night on my television. And what he said, while pointing to a skyscraper in Jersey City, was that that building was built by the Trump Organization, and he made sure they got no tax breaks. His ads directly take on the Orange Menace, which is something that’s rarely seen. So I went to his website, and saw something I’ve never seen before on any candidate website I’ve ever looked at. He has a policies page, and instead of a paragraph on each issue as is the norm on campaign websites, each topic has a PDF download. Each runs multiple pages and details “here is what we accomplished in Jersey City, here’s how things can be expanded on a statewide level”. We’re talking actual detailed scale-up plans, complete with considerations, challenges and how to overcome them.

I wonder who (besides me) is really willing to read through 10 - 12 pages of information on a variety of topics and evaluate the information. I’m betting not that many. So I don’t know details will play with regular voters.

The interesting thing is that, while there is not much polling, it’s obvious that most people either aren’t paying attention, or haven’t made up their minds yet. That “Other” column on the right is actually “undecided” since there aren’t other candidates. Source.

It’s an outrageously expensive race. You can see all the financial data (so far) at this link. We don’t know yet how expensive, since not all the data has been filed, but it’s likely that between candidates and outside spending, it will go well over $100 million.

Why? New Jersey has only two media markets: New York City and Philadelphia. And they’re expensive. The number of tv ads will be huge because there are only two main groups who vote in primaries: activists (who don’t need anything, they’re already all in for their candidates) and old people. And old people (like me) still watch television. There will also be radio ads, which include NYC, Philly, and NJ radio stations, along with digital ads.

All in all an exciting race! I don’t live in New Jersey, but if I did, I’d vote for Steve Fulop because I read ALL his plans and I like them. But what about you? Whether or not you live in New Jersey, use the comments to say for whom you’d vote. I can’t poll on it because Substack won’t allow for 6 choices. Sigh.

1. Jack Ciattarelli will win the Rethuglican primary.

2. For those of you who remember the GW Bridge fiasco, the best meme line was Chris saying: “I’m on a diet, I said close the FRIDGE, not the bridge”.

3. I have known Marines. And ALL of them will tell you, one never ceases to be a Marine, only that they are not currently on active duty. To all the Marines, and members of the other services, I thank you for your service.