New Jersey primary election polls open
It's primary day in New Jersey.
The Garden State's voters will select which candidates will face off in November, when term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy's seat and all 80 seats in the Legislature's lower chamber come up for a vote.
This year's contests have seen a swell of candidacies. Six Democrats and five Republicans are seeking their parties' nods for governor, and more candidates are seeking seats in the Assembly than at any point since 1993.
On the Republican side, contractor Justin Barbera, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, ex-Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac, and longtime radio host Bill Spadea hope to flip the governorship after eight years of Democratic rule.
The Democratic contest includes Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, teachers union president Sean Spiller, and ex-state Sen. Steve Sweeney. They are hoping to win a third consecutive gubernatorial term for their party for the first time since Gov. Richard Hughes succeeded Gov. Robert Meyner more than half a century ago.
Polls have shown Sherrill and Ciattarelli leading their respective races, though public surveys of both contests have been rare, and the sheer number of candidates makes the results unpredictable, particularly on the Democratic side.
Twenty-five of the state's 40 legislative districts will play host to intraparty challenges Tuesday. Most of those come on the Democratic side and from candidates recruited by and aligned with Fulop, though Republicans face primaries in some districts too.
It's likely some sitting lawmakers will see their tenures ended by Tuesday's results.
In the 31st District, Assemblyman William Sampson (D-Hudson) and Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker face Assemblywoman Barbara McCann Stamato (D-Hudson) and Bayonne Councilwoman Jacqueline Weimmer, who are running under Fulop's slogan.
In the neighboring 32nd District, Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-Hudson) and Jersey City Councilman Yousef Saleh — both on Fulop's slate — face party-backed candidates Hoboken Public Library director Jennie Pu and Crystal Fonseca, division director of buildings and street maintenance in Jersey City.
Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla and former state administrator Katie Brennan, whose accusations of sexual assault against a 2017 Murphy campaign staffer roiled Trenton, are also seeking the nod in the 32nd District.
Close to half a million New Jerseyans had already voted by Monday morning.
Statewide, 148,686 residents cast in-person ballots at early voting stations during the state's six days of early voting, said a spokesperson for the Department of State. Another 317,984 had returned mail-in ballots as of Monday morning.
Election officials will accept mail ballots postmarked by Election Day for six days after polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Residents vote in person at their polling place on Tuesday or by delivering their vote-by-mail ballot to a secure ballot drop box or their county board of elections.
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Indianapolis Star
13 minutes ago
- Indianapolis Star
Trump isn't Indiana lawmakers' boss. They should tell him so on redistricting.
When I was hired to run the state's mental health and addiction work, my daughter was 4 years old, and boy was she confused. 'Are you the governor?' she asked. 'No, I'm not the governor, but I work for him.' That made sense for a moment. But then came the follow-up: 'Doesn't everyone in Indiana work for the Governor?' No, I explained, the governor actually works for all of us. 'Oh, okay,' she said. Then she thought a little longer and asked about the president. 'Does the governor work for the president?' 'No,' I said. 'The governor serves the people of Indiana. And this particular president, well, he sort of works for himself.' Eventually she got it, though during my time at the state she would still complain about people littering and ask why I didn't do something about it. But, in general, she understood: I worked for Gov. Eric Holcomb, and he worked for the people of Indiana. We often collaborated with the federal government, but they were not our bosses. Why do I bring up this story, besides the fact that it's adorable (which, honestly, might be reason enough)? Because I'd like to remind our Republican state legislators that Donald Trump is not, in fact, their boss. The backdrop for this, of course, is the ongoing pressure campaign from the Trump administration on red states to redraw districts mid-decade in a bid to secure a GOP House majority in 2026. Governor Braun and Indiana's legislative leaders clearly don't want to participate, but they haven't ruled it out. Indiana is already heavily gerrymandered. Republicans hold 78% (7 of 9) U.S. House seats in a state where they usually get about 60% of the vote. National attention is focused on flipping Rep. Frank Mrvan's seat in Northwest Indiana, and maybe even Rep. André Carson's in Indianapolis, despite both incumbents winning reelection by healthy margins in 2022 and 2024. Of course, gerrymandering happens in red, blue, and purple states alike. It's a kind of tolerated cheating, part of the 'unwritten rules' of politics. But like in baseball, the system's balance depends on everyone knowing which lines not to cross. What makes this redistricting push especially dangerous is that it represents the final form of the worst political trend of the last 10-15 years: the nationalization of state and local politics. The gravitational pull of Washington has hollowed out the traditional role of governors and legislatures as problem-solvers for their own states. Instead, every fight gets reframed as a proxy war in the national culture struggle. The 2024 Indiana GOP gubernatorial primary is a perfect example. That race was dominated by national, culture-war coded topics: the 'war on woke,' virtue signaling about trans athletes, or border enforcement in a state that is hundreds of miles from the closest border. That is why Trump's allies think they can dictate Indiana's maps. But resistance, right now, would be timely, brave, and necessary pushback against this insidious trend and a chance to remind voters that Indiana's leaders should answer to Indiana, not to a fading national figure. The unwritten rule of American politics has been that districts are redrawn after every decennial census, in a manner that may advance partisan goals. It's actually a fairly elegant agreement: count the people, draw districts, and redo it after the next count. This norm keeps the system from being brutalized by a would-be dictator in pursuit of raw power, while acknowledging the reality that political actors will pursue political goals. Our legislators understand this, which is why they don't want to do it. Here's the thing, and it is really the only thing that matters: they don't have to do it. This decision belongs entirely to Indiana's legislature. Like I told my daughter: Donald Trump is not their boss. The only tool MAGA has is political pressure, and if you take a closer look, there's a decent case for not bending the knee. Very soon, Trump will be a lame-duck president, likely presiding over a recession. And like an aging NFL wide receiver (remember the Andre Johnson year with the Colts, woof), his decline will probably be sudden and striking, not gradual. If you're an elected Republican, this is exactly the moment to create daylight between yourself and Trump. You have a clear moral case, and a strong practical one, since this amounts to threatening decades of statewide dominance for maybe one more congressional seat. Yes, they can threaten to primary you, but can they really primary all of you? That's a bluff worth calling, because they cannot be allowed to win this one. Yes, Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing. Yes, Trump's opponents have cried fascism so often that many people have tuned out. But, if you remember your Aesop, the real danger of crying wolf is that sometimes the wolf actually shows up. Here's hoping that the Indiana legislature holds the line.
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump backed a scramble to redraw congressional seats in Texas. Michigan ‘not engaging'
Michigan is a political battleground, but the state will likely stay out of the redistricting war threatening to upend the congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm election. In fact, Michigan's swing state status has yielded divided state government, essentially taking it out of a fight in which one-party rule is a kind of precondition for participation. The process of drawing new voting districts typically happens once every ten years following the decennial census. But a mid-decade redistricting shake-up began when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called a special legislative session to redraw congressional districts in his state. President Donald Trump has expressed his hope that new lines will allow Republicans to pick up five more seats for Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has moved ahead with a plan to suspend the map drawn by his state's independent redistricting commission to ask voters to adopt lines that favor Democrats. Michigan has a redistricting commission similar to the one in California. Independent redistricting advocates have railed against politically skewed voting districts designed to benefit one political party, describing such gerrymandering as a way to distort election outcomes by letting politicians choose their voters instead of the other way around. In Michigan, voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2018 that wrested control of the redistricting process from lawmakers and put the pen in the hands of a group of randomly selected voters charged with drawing fair maps. Several factors mean Michigan is all but guaranteed to stay on the sidelines of the battle to control Congress by changing the map: legal safeguards protecting Michigan's citizen-led redistricting process, the partisan makeup of the state's Legislature, election timelines and a general disinterest among politicians to interfere. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she has no interest in redrawing the lines. "We're not changing any maps in Michigan," she told reporters Aug. 20. "What's going on in Texas I think is an affront to democracy, and so it's understandable that you've got other states starting to have similar conversations about what's possible. We're not engaging in that here in Michigan." While the leaders of both major political parties in the state may not agree on much, they have one thing in common: neither is clamoring to see a new congressional map put in place before the 2030 census triggers the next redistricting cycle. Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel condemned Texas Republicans' redistricting push as a power grab and applauded Democratic governors for trying to fight the map with their own efforts to change their state's congressional districts. But Hertel said he's not calling on Michigan Democrats to try to follow in their footsteps, and he expressed pride in the redistricting process approved by Michigan voters to create fair maps. "I don't want to go back," he said. It also wasn't top of mind for Michigan GOP Chair state Sen. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, who said he wanted to do more research on the redistricting fight playing out in Texas before commenting. In a follow-up call, Runestad characterized Newsom's redistricting push as a partisan endeavor in contrast to Texas, where he said lawmakers seemed to be focused on addressing concerns the U.S. Department of Justice raised about how their congressional map divided voters of color into different voting districts. Critics have characterized the department's allegations as a kind of pretext for partisan gerrymandering in Texas. Even if Michigan politicians wanted to try to take back control of the redistricting process now, they would have a steep hill to climb. Changing the process in Michigan would require an amendment to the state's constitution. With the support of two-thirds of members in both chambers of the Michigan Legislature, lawmakers could put forward a constitutional amendment asking voters to change the redistricting process again. But Michigan Democrats control the Michigan Senate while Republicans control the Michigan House, a composition that makes it highly unlikely lawmakers would come together across party lines to agree to such an amendment. Michigan voters could also propose a constitutional amendment, but no campaign has emerged to put redistricting back on the ballot to ask voters to essentially dismantle the redistricting process that they put in place. Even if it did, voters wouldn't have a chance to take it up until the November 2026 election. Christy McGillivray, who serves as executive director of Voters Not Politicians, which spearheaded the anti-gerrymandering campaign in Michigan, said she has faith that Michigan voters want to stick with a citizen-led, independent redistricting process, saying fairness is a principle that brings them together despite their political differences. "They're even-keeled and the current hyper-partisanship coming from the federal government doesn't reflect the majority of Michiganders. It really doesn't," she said. Like California and Texas, many of the other states that could become entangled in the mid-decade redistricting war are solidly Republican or solidly Democratic states. Michigan, meanwhile, has a competitive political geography. More: Mayor Mike Duggan, Chief Todd Bettison laud feds for helping decrease crime in Detroit The state's congressional map features some of the most highly contested districts in the U.S. Political operatives see a path to gerrymander Michigan voting districts to favor one political party. "It would be easy to do," said Jeff Timmer, the former Michigan GOP executive director who helped draw voting districts to favor Republicans before voters put an independent redistricting process in place. But Timmer also said that the state's map creates some obstacles to such an attempt. Someone could draw a map that makes the state's competitive congressional districts slightly more Republican- or Democratic-leaning, but he likened that to stepping on a balloon. For instance, a mapper couldn't make a competitive seat in Oakland County and still have one in Macomb County, Timmer said. An attempt to gerrymander wouldn't provide the "clear, decisive, slam dunk" for partisans in Michigan like it does in California or Texas, he said. Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@ or 313-296-5743. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan set to avoid mid-decade congressional map redraw
The Hill
28 minutes ago
- The Hill
Democrats alarmed over new data showing voters fleeing to GOP
Democrats are sounding the alarm on new data showing they are losing voters to Republicans across the country. A devastating New York Times report Wednesday showed that of the 30 states that maintain voter registration records by political party, Democrats fell behind Republicans in all of them between the 2020 and 2024 elections. In total, Republicans added up to 4.5 million voters compared to Democrats, creating a huge hold that could set Democrats back for years. 'I think it should be an alarm' for the Democratic Party, said party strategist Eddie Vale. 'I think it's a real problem.' The new data comes as Democrats struggle to figure out how to get out of the political wilderness after losing the presidency to Donald Trump and control of both chambers of Congress to the GOP. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has found traction with attacks on Trump, mimicking the president on social media and energizing many in his party. But the Democratic brand itself has taken a number of big hits, and The New York Times data is just the latest point suggesting the party has lost its way. Vale noted that a span of voters, including people of different races and ages, were abandoning the party, according to the Times reporting. He said his worry is that all of these different kinds of voters feel like the Democratic Party left them. They 'all shared the broader fact that they are working class and not feeling like we were talking to them or actually going to help them, so that needs to be fixed,' he said. Another Democratic strategist found the report disheartening at a time when Democrats are feeling rudderless and leaderless and lacking a coherent message for voters. 'Two things need to happen for Trump's political movement to fail: Trump and MAGA popularity plummets and Democrats' brand popularity rises,' the strategist said. 'The former is happening but not the latter.' 'You have to have something clear to offer an alternative vision,' the strategist added. 'The voter registration lag is directly related to this because the Democratic brand is flat. It's one of the reasons why the most successful Democrats in this environment run against both parties.' Democrats have been feeling dejected since their devastating defeat in November, when they lost control of not just the presidency but the House and the Senate, which they had previously controlled. Recent polls show that Democrats view their party as weak. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July revealed that about 1 in 5 Democrats described their party in a positive light. And a poll by the Democratic super PAC Unite the Country obtained by The Hill last month showed that voters perceived the Democratic Party as 'out of touch,' 'woke' and 'weak.' The struggle to connect with voters has been a running theme for months, with even Democrats acknowledging that they have yet to put forward a compelling message. A Wall Street Journal poll out late last month showed Democrats' popularity had hit the lowest point in 35 years, as 63 percent of voters had an unfavorable view of the party. At the same time, 33 percent of those surveyed held a favorable view. The drop in voter registration for Democrats 'matches what we see in the polls,' said Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, who does not support Trump. 'People are unsatisfied with what the Democrats are offering.' 'It shows how Democrats took things for granted and got out-hustled by Republicans, and I don't say that with glee or anything else,' Del Percio added. 'But the numbers are there, and this is proof in the pudding.' A major Democratic donor was more scathing: 'Our party sucks. Our leadership sucks. Our message sucks. Why would anyone want to be a Democrat?' 'We're completely out of touch,' the donor said. Democrats also say they are aware of voters' perceptions and views of the party and have sought to make inroads with key demographics that have strayed from their party. They have been conducting a series of postmortems and focus groups in an effort to win the voters back. Steve Schale, the veteran Democratic strategist, said the only voter registration that has 'really moved the needle in the last 20 years has been centered around the party and candidates' and that Democrats should return to that model. 'Not only does party-based voter registration accomplish the rote goal of registering voters, it also requires the kind of outreach in key communities that we have long rightly been criticized for abandoning,' Schale said. 'But to this, donors have to be willing to support the DNC [Democratic National Committee] and state parties.' 'It won't happen on its own,' Schale added. At the same time, Vale cautioned that the Democratic Party should not simply mend what's broken. They have to be forward-looking. 'We need to make sure that while we fix it we don't only fight the last war and not be attuned to things possibly changing again,' Vale said. 'Because we have already seen in a lot of polling that younger people, Latino and African American men are souring on Trump and that can be something that can be the leading edge of winning them back registration-wise.' In the end, Democratic strategist Anthony Coley said, the numbers amount to trust with voters and 'a larger problem with the Democratic brand.' 'Voters have run away from the party for a variety of reasons but trust — or the lack of it — tops the list,' Coley said. 'Too many voters just don't trust the Democratic Party to deliver on issues they care about.'
