New Jersey Picks Its Gubernatorial Candidate Tomorrow— Baraka And Fulop Are The Two Best

ConservaDems Sherrill, Gottheimer And Sweeney Suck

Baraka and Fulop

In the New Jersey gubernatorial primary, we’ve been covering Ras Baraka and Josh Gottheimer more than the other candidates— Baraka because of the news cycles that included his arrest by ICE thugs and his subsequent lawsuit against Trump shill Alina Habba, interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, and Gottheimer because he is the exact caricature of a corrupt corporate careerist Democrat who needs to be sidelined from electoral politics, not elevated. But there is another strong progressive running besides Baraka— Steve Fulop, probably the most electable Democrat in the race.

Early voting is in operation and primary day is tomorrow. In New Jersey, no Republican has won statewide since the corrupt South Jersey Democratic machine sabotaged Barbara Buono to allow Chris Christie to win in 2013. With machine boss George Norcross mostly sidelined, tomorrow’s primary will likely decide who New Jersey’s next governor will be. It would be a shame if conservative Democrats like Gottheimer or establishment  favorite Mikie Sherrill were to win this.

The worst

The 6 candidates are Newark mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop, congressmen Gottheimer, a Blue Dog, and Sherrill, a New Dem, Stephen Sweeney, the South Jersey machine candidate and Sean Spiller, president of the state Education Association. It’s telling that most of Congress’ worst Democrats— Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME), Susie Lee (New Dem-NV), Jared Moskowitz (Likud-FL), Jimmy Panetta (New Dem-CA), Ritchie Torres (CryptoCartel-NY)— have endorsed him… but no one from New Jersey. And speaking of bad guy endorsements, Biden’s worst and most corrupt cabinet member, Gina Raimondo (Wall Street-RI), endorsed Sherrill as did, Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic senator with the single most conservative voting record.

Most polling I’ve seen shows Sherrill in first place with Fulop as the best-placed to beat her and also beat Jack Ciattarelli or Bill Spadea, the two most likely Republican candidates who will wind up winning the GOP primary tomorrow. Trump endorsed Ciattarelli but hate talk radio host Spadea is the real MAGAt.

As for fundraising, only Spiller among the Democrats has fallen flat ($438,817). The others have all raised enough money to get their message out. Fulop, Gottheimer and Sherrill have all raised a bit more than $9 million, Sweeney has taken in $8 million and Baraka has raised $6.4 million. In GOP-land, Ciattarelli is even with the top-raising Dems and Spadea has raised $4.5 million. As for Blue America, we’re co-endorsing Baraka and Fulop, the two progressives in the race. Friday, the New Jersey Digest ran a good piece by Peter Candia about Fulop, As the NJ Primary Nears, One Candidate Looks To Break From the Establishment. Fulop is making a strong case about general election electability. Candia wrote that “Fulop, who has cast himself as a party outsider, closed a weekend campaign stop by asking the crowd how many were thinking about electability. Most hands went up. It’s a message he has repeated again and again on the trail: not every Democratic candidate can beat Republican frontrunner Jack Ciattarelli in November. The Democratic primary on Tuesday marks one of the first statewide tests since former Trump gained ground in blue states like New Jersey in 2024. While Biden won the state in 2020 by 16 points, Kamala Harris’ margin narrowed to just 6 points last year. Similarly, Phil Murphy won reelection in 2021 by less than 100,000 votes.”

Fulop, a former Marine, has been mayor of Jersey City since 2013. He often makes the point that under his leadership the city “has out-paced New York City on housing built per capita in that time, which could matter to New Jersey residents facing a housing crisis. Fulop has also overseen a growing cityscape and major transit improvements during his tenure. When it comes to running the state at large, his plans extend beyond housing and transit. Fulop has positioned himself, along with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, as a party outsider in the race. If you attend one of his meet and greets, which he has held dozens of across the entire state, you will hear one phrase repeated: “The Machine.” From the get go, Fulop has assured NJ residents that he exists outside of what he refers to as the ‘NJ Democratic Machine,’ insisting that New Jersey party bosses are clamoring for Mikie Sherill, Steve Sweeney or Josh Gottheimer to be the party’s nominee.” [Mostly Sherrill, who is the Machine candidate everywhere except in the mostly red southern part of the state.]

Fulop summed it up like this to the local ABC News outlet: “It’s going to be a test on June 10 whether they want a candidate that is a traditional party establishment, vanilla candidate [Sherrill], or do they want change and reform.”

In addition to his own campaign, Fulop has his eye on remaking the entire NJ Democratic party. For this race, he has set up a slate of Assembly candidates statewide that could help to deliver an upset. These are fellow outsider candidates who want change in New Jersey.

Fulop did something else out of the ordinary: he announced his Lieutenant Governor pick, South Orange Mayor Sheena Collum, weeks ago. Traditionally, candidates wait until after the primary to pick their running mate. In an Ask Me Anything on Reddit, he explained his reasoning. “I believe residents should know what an admin will look like BEFORE they vote in the primary. Most other states do it this way as well and Sheena is amazing. So multiple reasons,” he wrote to one commenter.

Social media outreach and frequent meet and greets show a commitment to transparency that is often lost in politics. Fulop’s policy page on his website is lengthy. For example, his housing policy includes 16 pages of hyper-detailed information. Whether you agree with every position or not isn’t really the point. The point is that it’s all laid out— there is no guessing involved.

Sherill has been the frontrunner for most of the election season, but Fulop remains confident that he can deliver an upset. An article titled Anatomy of an Upset explains that the once lopsided race could now potentially be a toss-up.

His set up is simple: where other candidates rely on large staff and party-backed campaigns, Fulop focuses on the ground level. His campaign has no manager or finance director. Instead, two staffers and 21 county-based “mini campaigns” make up the operation. Around 1,500 volunteers are currently active across every county in New Jersey campaigning for Fulop and his assembly candidates.

The Philadelphia Enquirer endorsed Fulop in May— a surprise to many who expected the Philly mag to back the only South Jersey candidate in the race, Steve Sweeney.

In many ways, Steven Fulop’s Gubernatorial campaign is a test: do Democratic voters want something different in New Jersey?

Something different? In New Jersey? Sounds like a great idea to me. Baraka and Fulop have proven they are. Sherrill and Sweeney have proven they're not. Gottheimer has proven something even worse than that... he's a Reagan Republican cosplaying being a corporate Democrat.

Last week, NBC News noted that Fulop told the voters gathered at the Cranford Community Center that [Kamala] Harris ultimately lost because “she was unable to articulate a clear vision of what the United States of America would look like that was different than Joe Biden, or with any authenticity and conviction.”

“‘I do believe that if you’re an establishment candidate, you’re going to lose,’ Fulop told NBC News after the event. ‘I think the mood of the country has been clearly antiestablishment with both Democratic [and] Republican for some time.’ Fulop has been pitching himself as the candidate taking on the party’s political machine, and he said he appeals to ‘pragmatic progressive’ voters. He has suggested that Democrats should distance themselves from Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, since Republicans will look to make the race a referendum on Murphy's administration.”