Primary Day Approaches on Tuesday
After over $100 million in advertising, the primary election finally concludes on Tuesday night. This is arguably the most competitive pair of primaries this state has seen since 1981. Part of the reason why is that last year the courts overturned a longstanding NJ law that gave candidates endorsed by the County Party a beneficial “line” on the ballot, leaving non-endorsed candidates off in a kind of ‘ballot Siberia’, with blank spaces around their name. Many potential candidates would drop out of the race after being denied the county endorsement.
Now each political office is blocked off separately, and the names are listed in a random order. Each has a slogan below their name, the idea being to try and tell voters which candidate is the one endorsed by the county party leadership.
On the Republican side, President Trump’s official endorsement of Jack Ciattarelli, who lost by 3% to Gov. Murphy four years ago, sealed his position as the frontrunner for the nomination. Former 101.5 host Bill Spadea is still fighting hard and hopes his positioning as a true-MAGA outsider will carry him to victory. State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Union) is also looking to pull off an upset focusing on his experience and a law-and-order platform.
On the Democratic side, there remains a plausible path for any of the 6 candidates to split the field and win. Theoretically, the winner of the nomination could get just 28% or so of the vote, given how divided everyone’s support is, and the fact that there remains a lot of undecided voters. The soft frontrunner is still Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (Essex and Morris). She is running with the support of most of the Party Establishment in North and Central Jersey. Ideologically, she is running in the middle of the party, hoping to appeal to a broad base, and focusing on her biography.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka are running to her left on policy, and also framing themselves as outsiders running against the state’s party machine. It’s also possible they split the more leftist voters between them, allowing someone else to win. Congressman Josh Gottheimer (Bergen) and former Senate President Steve Sweeney (Gloucester) are both running as more moderate and business-friendly candidates who want to lower taxes and the cost of living. Gottheimer is trying to run up the vote in his home base of Bergen County and pick up voters across the state with heavy advertising. Sweeney is trying to run up the vote in South Jersey to offset big losses elsewhere. And Sean Spiller, the head of the teachers’ union, is running a media campaign funded by $40 million in teachers’ union dues, hoping that he’ll get enough state workers to support him to get the nomination.
Once the votes are counted, we’ll know for sure who the two nominees are, and it’s expected to be a heavily contested general election that will see tens of millions of spending by both parties. Democrats are trying to win a third consecutive governor’s race, something neither party has been able to do since the 1960s.
Though not getting as much attention as the race for governor, there are a number of races for the General Assembly that are being contested. Normally, there’s rarely more than one or two primary races for the Assembly that are ever contested, but the change in the ballot design has led to a new group of challengers, many of them were recruited by Mayor Fulop to run alongside him and against the party establishment. Fully half of the districts in the State have a contested primary, mostly on the Democratic side.
One long-term concern we have is that if contested primaries become more common, will legislators respond by moving further to the left and trying to overly regulate businesses of all sizes? NJGCA’s political action committee is doing its part to help reasonable legislators stay in office. Thank you to those who have supported our efforts to do so over the years, if you can contribute to our efforts it is deeply appreciated and does have a real impact for the industry. Many candidates are asking for $500 per event now, so any contribution you can make is appreciated. Click HERE to download our contributor form so you can mail us a contribution.
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