The Other Outsider

In the 2025 governor's race, it's already pretty clear that Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop is gonna align himself very aggressively against the party establishment and what's perceived as the machine. What's less clear is just how far Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is willing to go, and there are multiple places where he or his orbit may be forced to make a choice in the coming weeks and months. There's the primary in Assembly district 28, which is Maplewood, South Orange, Irvington, Hillside, and the West, South, and Central Wards of Newark, and there, West Ward Democratic chairman Chigozie Onyema is challenging Baraka-supporting longtime incumbent Cleopatra Tucker, as well as first-term incumbent Garnet Hall. Onyema appears to have the support of the Essex County Democrats and has locked up the support of the Union County Democrats. It's gonna be up to Baraka and his newly prominent ally, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, to decide whether they want to weigh in on District 28 and potentially protect Tucker. (Essex County Democrats do not appear to support either incumbent in Assembly District 28, at least not as much as they support Onyema, which I find very interesting.)

I don't think LD-28 is the only place where Baraka and McIver have have an opportunity to choose. McIver's district includes a chunk of Jersey City. She has constituents in legislative districts 31 and 32, where there are contested Assembly primaries. McIver could weigh in there, and so could Baraka, because he's trying to establish a foothold in Jersey City as well. You could also see McIver or Baraka try and weigh in in the Jersey City municipal elections. I could see them aligning themselves with James Solomon, the progressive candidate for for mayor, because Solomon has aligned himself with popular incumbent city councilors in the two wards with the most overlap with congressional district 10, A and F. Solomon's running on a slate with councilwoman Denise Ridley in A and councilman Frank Gilmore in F. Especially for McIver, it could basically be a freebie for her to endorse those candidates, because I believe both Ridley and Gilmore will win even if Solomon does not. I think it could be an opportunity for McIver and Baraka to establish more of a foothold in Jersey City. I also think McIver may have opportunities to get involved further south and further north, outside of Newark. In legislative district 34, former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks, the former North Jersey political director for Andy Kim's campaign, and Belleville Councilman Frank Vélez III are running against Assemblywoman Carmen Morales and Assemblyman Michael Venezia. That district is Bloomfield, Orange, East Orange, Glen Ridge, Belleville, and Nutley. It's a plurality Black district with a large Hispanic population, and the white population in the district—at least those of them that vote Democratic—are disproportionally college educated professionals living in Bloomfield and Glen Ridge, so those are not machine-friendly voters. (Claybrooks is Black, Vélez and Morales are Hispanic, and Venezia is white.) I think McIver could have an incentive to weigh in because she does represent chunks of that district; East Orange and the city of Orange are in her district. I could also see her having incentive to weigh in in assembly district 27 where Fulop is running an Assembly candidate, Rohit Dave. That district snakes from Millburn all the way to Clifton, and McIver represents chunks of it in Montclair and West Orange.

I'm very curious whether and how the Baraka orbit decides to wait into the contested downballot primaries in their backyard which I've discussed. I know they're reportedly running one Assembly candidate outside of their turf, up in Paterson; they're planning on supporting Kenyatta Stewart, the Newark Corporation Counsel and a close Baraka adviser, for the 35th District Assembly seat, which is Paterson, Garfield, Prospect Park, Haledon, and Elmwood Park. Paterson is not Baraka's home base, but it would be part of his path to victory. Of course, I'm most interested in 28, the one contested primary that's currently going on in Baraka's backyard in Newark, because I want to see whether Cleopatra Tucker decides to take it to a primary or bows out after losing party support, and I also want to see whether Baraka decides to defend her and pick a fight with the Essex County machine, assuming she decides to take it to a primary. I'm also pretty interested in whether he plays in Assembly District 34, because I would expect him to have some influence there in Orange and East Orange. He does have the mayor of the city of Orange, Dwayne Warren, backing him; East Orange is on the Newark border and is very historically connected to Newark, so being the mayor of Newark provides Baraka with some degree of name recognition. A tactical alliance with either the Fulop team or the machine in LD-34 could be advantageous to Baraka.