Dem
47
GOP
53
Unlike Virginia, where the general election campaigns have already started, New Jersey is going to be a free-for-all in both parties. New Jersey is a blue state, but the conviction of Bob Menendez didn't help the Democrats' image much and Kamala Harris' performance in the state was the worst of any Democrat in over 30 years. Also, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) won in 2021 by the thinnest of margins, 51% to 48%. And everyone in the state remembers Chris Christie—not always favorably, but they do remember him.
The primaries are in June, so we will have 6 months of mudslinging in the primaries. Six credible Democrats have already jumped in. Three of these are well known and good at fundraising. All three are white. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop is the most anti-establishment of the three. He is the son of a delicatessen owner and grandson of Holocaust survivors. He went to Harpur College and then got an MBA from NYU and an MPA from Columbia. After graduating, he worked for Goldman Sachs, didn't like it there, and joined the Marine Corps, which sent him to Iraq. He got quite a bit of publicity about leaving a high-paying job on Wall St. to serve his country in an active war zone. He was elected to the Jersey City Council at 28, the third youngest councilor in the 200-year existence of the city. In 2013, he was elected mayor of Jersey City and has been there ever since. His fights with the New Jersey establishment are legendary. As mayor, he has built thousands of housing units and implemented a $17/hr minimum wage and paid sick leave for city employees. He will be the progressives' favorite.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) is also running. "Mikie" is pronounced "MY kee," not "mickey," although her birth name is actually Rebecca Michelle Sherrill. She went to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. After graduation she learned to fly helicopters and flew missions throughout Europe and the Middle East for the Navy. She left the Navy as a lieutenant, which is like a captain in the Army, although if she had stayed in, she would have been promoted to Lt. Commander (major in the Army). After leaving the Navy, she got a J.D. at Georgetown and became a federal prosecutor. In 2018, she was elected to the House. She was initially a Blue Dog, but has since left that caucus. Her base will be college-educated suburban women who see an accomplished and talented woman in her who could become New Jersey's first Democratic female governor (Christine Todd Whitman is a Republican).
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is also running. He is the son of a small business owner and a preschool teacher. He got into politics early. At 16, he was a Senate page. In college (Penn) he was an intern for C-SPAN, the secretary of the Senate, and the speaker of the House. After getting a J.D. at Harvard Law School, at 23, he was a speechwriter for Bill Clinton, and later worked in the campaigns of Wesley Clark, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton. He later worked at the FCC on broadband and then became a strategist for Microsoft. In 2016, he beat a sitting Republican for election to the House in an intensely bitter race. In the House, he is a fiscal moderate. He is known as a human ATM as he is a gargantuan fundraiser and has $20 million in his federal campaign account. However, New Jersey tightly regulates spending on state races. Like Fulop, he is Jewish and a very staunch supporter of Israel. All three of these candidates are highly qualified and about as elite as you can get.
There are three other Democrats in the race, but they are lower profile than these three. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is Black and much further left than any of the others. He will have to depend on small, grassroots donations. Sean Spiller, also Black, is a former teacher and current leader of the teachers union. Stephen Sweeney is 65, a social moderate, and the former president of the state Senate until he was defeated for reelection by a Republican in 2021.
One insider described the race as a "sh**show." As high-profile members of Congress and big fundraisers, Sherrill and Gottheimer are the best known statewide and the favorites.
Now the Republicans. Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli really wants to be governor of New Jersey. He ran in 2017 and 2021 with no luck. Maybe the third time's the charm. He has a B.S. in accounting and an MBA in finance, both from Seton Hall University, a private Catholic school. He was president of the Raritan Borough Council from 1991 to 1995, then on the Somerset County Board of Commissions. In 2011 he was elected to the Assembly. He has clearly come up through the ranks, but he has a problem. He has called Donald Trump a "charlatan" and has stated that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. He is very not-MAGA. Will that fly in the modern Republican Party?
Bill Spadea, in contrast, is a very Trumpy radio host. He is all-culture-war all the time. He went to Boston University and then served a stint in the Marine Corps. Then he ran for Congress and the state legislature and lost both races, failing to get 40% in either one. If New Jersey Republicans want to go all-out Trumpy, Spadea is their man. Of course, this is likely to result in a Gov. Gottheimer or Gov. Sherrill, but you can't have everything. Because Spadea ranted on his radio show for thousands of hours, if he gets the nomination—and he could if Trump endorses him—Democratic oppo researchers will have a field day selecting out choice material for ads.
Other Republicans include state Sen. Jon Bramnick and former state Sen. Ed Durr, neither of whom is expected to get the GOP nomination.
All in all, in a blue state with one of three very strong Democrats running against either a not-Trumpy two-time loser or a very Trumpy guy with a massive lode of material for oppo researchers to work with, it favors the blue team. If we had to guess a year in advance, we would say Sherrill and Gottheimer are the (slight) favorites now. But in politics, a week is a long time and a year is forever. (V)