Several party-endorsed Assembly candidates lost. And the gubernatorial candidate endorsed by the county party lost in 10 counties
The first state election with new ballots saw five party-endorsed Assembly candidates, an unusually large number, losing in last week’s primary.
While party-endorsed candidates still won most of contested Assembly primary races and defeated two incumbents running without that party backing, any losses of endorsed candidates are significant. And they are likely due, at least in part, to the newly designed office block ballots required by law and used for the first time this election. These ballots still listed a party endorsement for a candidate, but all endorsed candidates did not appear in the same row or column.
“Anytime anyone beat the line was sort of like gravity being defied or an earth-shaking moment,” said Antoinette Miles, New Jersey state director of the Working Families Party. “This election really demonstrates that there are some fissures and democracy can play out. And the county machines don’t quite have the hold on the ballot in the way they’ve had it before. They don’t necessarily have a full hold on the electorate and there are really ways to compete and to win.”
Julia Sass Rubin’s research on the impact of the county line on voting was instrumental in last year’s federal lawsuit that led to the end of the party line ballot design. Rubin, an associate dean and professor at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, called the primary results a “political earthquake.”
Losing some power
In 10 counties the gubernatorial candidate — seven Democrats and three Republicans — endorsed by the county party lost. Up until this year, no Democratic gubernatorial candidate running on the county line had lost this century and only three Republicans with the line had lost, all in Democratic-controlled counties with weak GOP organizations.
Sass Rubin said that since 2011, only one Assembly challenger had beaten a county line candidate in a primary.
“There were historic upsets in the Assembly races as well this year,” Sass Rubin said, despite substantial activity by party organizations. “The political machines understood how important Tuesday’s primary was for maintaining their control of the state. The county party organizations invested substantial resources to send mailers to primary voters showing where their endorsed candidates appeared on the ballot and aggressively canvassed for those candidates. Thirteen county organizations even changed the slogans that appear beneath candidate names on the primary ballot to make clear which candidates they had endorsed. Tuesday’s election results underscore, however, that it was primarily the county line ballot that enabled the political machines to control who won.”
The election ‘was a very encouraging sign that New Jersey is becoming a real democracy in which the voters rather than the political machines decide who governs.’ — Julia Sass Rubin, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University
More than 1.27 million residents voted in the primary, according to the most updated data, and that could still rise slightly as the final votes are counted. That represents 31% of registered Democrats and Republicans. The total number set a new record for a non-federal primary.
“Tuesday’s election was a very encouraging sign that New Jersey is becoming a real democracy in which the voters rather than the political machines decide who governs,” Sass Rubin said. “To bring that to fruition, voters must continue to stay engaged and to show up.”
Only one Assembly race remained uncalled as of midday Monday as ballot counting continues in New Jersey a week after primary Election Day. Final mail-in ballots postmarked by June 10 were still being accepted in county offices on Monday. The only ballots still remaining to be counted need to be “cured” due to an error and provisional ballots cast during early voting or on Election Day. Final results, barring any recounts, should be available at the end of the week.
In the Democratic primary in the 32nd Legislative District, Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla (left) and Katie Brennan beat the party-endorsed candidates.
Other than the Democratic primary in the 2nd Legislative District in Atlantic County, the contests are set for the general election, when all 80 seats in the Assembly will be on the ballot. The state is divided into 40 legislative districts, each represented by one senator and two Assembly members. The Senate seats are not on this year’s ballot. In addition to the 80 Assembly nominees from each party, six candidates filed to run as independents in as many districts in the state.
Because of gerrymandering, one party dominates in most districts so only a few elections are likely to be competitive in the fall. These include the 2nd District in Atlantic County, the 3rd along the Delaware River in South Jersey, the neighboring 4th that includes parts of Atlantic, Camden and Gloucester counties, the 8th in Burlington County, the 11th in Monmouth County and the 30th in Ocean County.
At least seven incumbents, all of them Democrats, will not be returning to the Legislature in January. Four retired and three others were defeated in the primary.
Here are noteworthy results from the Assembly primaries:
- Ed Rodriguez, a former Elizabeth city official, was declared the winner of a seat in the 20th District in Union County. He defeated Union County Commissioner Sergio Granados, who was the Union County Democratic Organization’s pick to replace Assemblyman Reginald Atkins, who chose not to seek reelection. Rodriguez beat Granados by little more than 100 votes. In a post on the social platform X, Rodriguez attributed his lead to a grassroots movement and the fact that “voters got to choose — not just party bosses, not political machines — and that alone is cause for celebration.” Incumbent Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, a Democrat, was the top vote-getter.
- In the 4th District spanning parts of Atlantic, Camden and Gloucester counties, Republicans Amanda Esposito and Gerard McManus, who were endorsed by the county party in Atlantic and Gloucester, won. Barbara McCormick had the Camden GOP endorsement but came in third.
- In the 28th District covering part of Newark and surrounding towns, Assemblywoman Garnet Hall lost off the line. When she did not get the backing of the Essex and Union Democratic parties, she had initially announced she would not run but then joined the Democrats for Change slate, running with Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who lost his bid for the gubernatorial nomination. Party-endorsed candidates Cleopatra Tucker, the 82-year-old incumbent, and Chigozie Onyema, a Democratic ward chairman in Newark, won the nominations easily.
- Assemblywoman Barbara McCann Stamato, who had been in second place the day after the primary, wound up losing by fewer than 200 votes when her fellow incumbent William Sampson pulled ahead in the 31st District encompassing Bayonne, Kearny and part of Jersey City. Sampson and Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker, the top vote-getter, were endorsed by the Hudson County Democratic Organization. Stamato ran on Fulop’s ticket with Bayonne Councilwoman Jacqueline Weimmer.
- Katie Brennan and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla won among a field of six Democratic candidates, including two endorsed by the Hudson County Democratic Organization, in the 32nd District encompassing Hoboken and half of Jersey City. Brennan heads a nonprofit housing organization and is a partner in a public affairs and public relations firm but may be best known statewide for her account of her sexual assault while volunteering on the first gubernatorial campaign of Phil Murphy by a campaign worker. That led to one of the first scandals of the Murphy administration and led to the man Brennan accused losing his job in the administration and to a change in state policy regarding alleged victims of sexual assault or harassment. In celebrating her victory, Brennan said, “We just showed the whole state that the people can beat the party bosses. This is what democracy looks like when it’s not rigged by political machines.”
- In the 35th District straddling Bergen and Passaic counties and including Paterson, Kenyatta Stewart was the top Democratic vote-getter off the line, defeating one of the party-endorsed candidates. Stewart, Newark’s corporation counsel and a member of the state Amistad Commission, has strong grassroots support and finished 1,300 votes ahead of incumbent Al Abdelaziz, who also won a nomination.
- The Democratic primary in the 39th District in northern Bergen County, which is represented by Republicans, featured no incumbents. Andrew Labruno, the former mayor of Dumont who was running with Fulop’s Democrats for Change, was the top vote-getter, followed by Democratic Committee of Bergen County candidate Donna Abene. She beat Labruno’s running mate David Jiang by fewer than 200 votes. The other party-endorsed candidate finished a distant fourth.
- Republican voters in the 39th District chose incumbents John Azzariti and Robert Auth, who had the endorsement of the Bergen County GOP, by a wide margin over Frank Pallotta, who lost twice in runs for Congress.
The only outstanding race is in the 2nd District, where the candidates endorsed by the Atlantic County Democratic Committee are leading. Maureen Rowan was declared the winner, but fewer than 100 votes separate the second- and third-place candidates, party-backed Joanne Famularo and Democrats for Change candidate Bruce Weekes, respectively. Atlantic County election officials have not updated vote totals since last Tuesday. Although registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in this once-swing district, the GOP has controlled all three seats for several years.