New Jersey Democrats prepare to pick a candidate, and an identity for their party

Murphy has stayed out of the Democratic primary, the first since the end of “the line,” a system that gave preferred ballot placement to candidates endorsed by county parties. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a rising star in the party since her landslide 2018 win in a historically Republican seat, has locked up most of those parties’ endorsements.

That has helped make Sherrill the favorite for the nomination, and the target of anti-establishment campaigning by Fulop and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. A Fulop PAC attacked her as a tool of the “political machine,” and both candidates went after donations from employees of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a $400 fine she paid over missing the deadline to report one of her husband’s stock trades, and an increase in her net worth since 2018.

Those ads led to an awkward moment for Sherrill, on The Breakfast Club, when host Charlamagne tha God asked her to explain the accusation in the ads, and how she’d made $7 million in Congress. “I, I haven’t – I don’t believe I did, but I’d have to go see what that was alluding to,” she said.

That moment encouraged Sherrill’s challengers, who’ve spent all year trying to challenge the electability aura of, as her ads put it, a “Navy helicopter pilot, a federal prosecutor, [and] a mom of four.” Baraka, whose national profile soared after his arrest at an ICE facility in Newark, has campaigned on a record of lower crime in the city and a more progressive governing agenda, paid for by a higher corporate tax. At a Saturday rally in Jersey City, he said that critics who accused him of campaigning on “rhetoric and platitudes” hadn’t offered anything real to voters.

“They don’t really understand the issues,” Baraka told Semafor. “If you understand the issues, you could talk about them passionately. And I don’t think they do. I think it’s talking points, white papers and all kinds of other things that they put together, or people put together for them.”

Polling has found a consistent lead for Sherrill, and enough undecided voters for a potential upset. Three other candidates have hoped to win them: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller, and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, who lost his seat four years ago when Ciattarelli out-performed the polls.

Sweeney, the only South Jersey candidate in the race, broke with the pack by saying he’d repeal the state’s “sanctuary” immigration status. Gottheimer and Spiller made news for other reasons: Gottheimer with a confounding TV ad that used AI to portray him boxing with Trump, Spiller with a $35 million spend from his union, dwarfing every other candidate’s war chest.

Sherrill had far more support from local and national Democratic groups, and pitched herself as the candidate Republicans didn’t want to run against. On Saturday morning, at a Colombian restaurant in Elizabeth, she shared the stage with a slate of Latino politicians who touted their work for the region and the work Sherrill could do if she won.

“We need more mothers in these spaces,” said Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz. “We need more caretakers in these spaces.”

The officially endorsed candidate of Union County Democrats spoke next. Ciattarelli, she said, “broke land speed records getting to Bedminster to kiss Trump’s ring.” But she knew how to fight Trump.

“As a former Navy helicopter pilot, as a former federal prosecutor, as a mom of four kids, four teenagers, I am telling you that I’m often reminded of a lesson that I learned when I was in the Navy,” she said. When ships ran aground, it was often because “the people on the bridge” were scared to warn their commanding officers. “And I tell you that, because I see that all the time in Congress.”

Ciattarelli, a former state legislator who’d also run for governor in 2017, began running for this nomination as soon as he conceded to Murphy. He faces four other Republicans in the primary, including Bill Spadea, a radio host who attacked him for as long as he could for Ciattarelli’s old, recanted criticism of Trump.

Post-endorsement polling has shown Ciattarelli expanding his lead over the field, and on Sunday, the candidate ignored his opponents and promised to fix the problems he pinned on Murphy and the Democrats, from the cost of living to “sanctuary state” policies that undermined police.

“They worry about pronouns. We worry about property taxes,” he said. “They worry about supporting illegals and setting criminals free. We care about supporting our local police and keeping our community safe. [W]e’ve got an overdevelopment crisis. We’ll fix that by stopping all this over-development in our suburbs.”

After the rally, Ciattarelli told Semafor that Trump would be an asset for his campaign, pointing out that the president got more votes last year than Murphy got in any of his races.

“Look what he’s done for New Jersey,” Ciattarelli said of Trump. “He’s put a temporary halt on the wind farms off the Jersey Shore. He’s beating up on New York Democrats over congestion pricing, and he’s willing to quadruple the SALT deduction on our federal tax returns. Those are all things that New Jerseyans overwhelmingly support. So I think we’re in a really, really good position here in terms of what the President’s positions are and what my positions are to win this election.”

Democrats lost to Chris Christie twice, but they were gobsmacked by how close the 2024 election ended up being in New Jersey. Not all of them; Murphy had told many people, Trump included, that it would be the state’s first single-digit race in 20 years. But why did Kamala Harris run nearly 400,000 votes behind Joe Biden? How, in four years, did Trump go from someone Ciattarelli wanted nothing to a political asset?

These are questions for November, though Democrats absolutely expected Trump to be less popular in New Jersey by now. An Emerson Poll last month gave the president a slightly higher approval rating than Murphy, which feeds into Fulop’s theory that another anti-Trump campaign won’t be effective.

You can expect Ciattarelli to win today. The Democratic race will be more revealing. Fulop is running a lot like Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) did last year, campaigning with an anti-machine “NJ for Change” slate, directly comparing Sherrill to Murphy’s wife Tammy, who Kim beat in the 2024 primary with an anti-machine campaign. (Murphy ended up pulling herself off the ballot.) Polling has not picked up any boost to Baraka since his arrest, which every other candidate condemned.

Republicans describe a Democratic Party that is so Trump-crazed that it’ll nominate whoever fights him the hardest and most furiously. If that doesn’t happen for Baraka, we’ll learn something about a very diverse Democratic electorate.

Democrats believe that Ciattarelli’s embrace of Trump, and refusal to break with him on anything, will end up being a liability — especially his plan for a garden state version of “DOGE,” an idea that has shined less brightly after it didn’t meet Elon Musk’s cost-saving expectations, and after some of its cuts led to money-wasting confusion.

“Jack Ciattarelli, over and over again, refuses to put a sliver of daylight between his plans for New Jersey and Donald Trump’s,” New Jersey Democratic State Committee spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said in a statement. “If Jack Ciattarelli makes it to the general election he’ll have to fully own his ’100% plus’ embrace of Donald Trump’s harmful, costly agenda, no matter what he says or how he tries to run from it.”