Thoughts on New Jersey Democrats' long, long debate night

Yahoo

19-05-2025

Five of the six Democrats vying for their party's nomination for governor on June 10 met for their final debate Sunday. (Illustration by Alex Cochran for New Jersey Monitor)
Five of the six candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for governor on June 10 met for their final debate of the campaign on Sunday. Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:
Rep. Mikie Sherrill is the presumptive front-runner based on public polling, though her rivals didn't go after her in any meaningful way.
Even Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who was aggressive in his interactions with Sherrill during a debate last week and has taken many swipes at her on social media, avoided confrontation with her Sunday. Fulop was asked about that during a press conference following the debate.
'I didn't think she was that relevant in the debate, to be honest with you, because she didn't insert herself in a lot of the conversations, so I didn't feel the need to say I disagree,' he said. 'She didn't really speak … much on the transportation front nor on the health care or education front in any substantive way.'
Sherrill's team, who were watching this press conference from the audience, looked quizzical. It's clear that Sherrill has been running more of a bio campaign than one based on specifics about what she'd do as governor, but she certainly offered specifics last night, saying she backs teacher certification programs for long-term substitutes, a planned light rail line connecting Glassboro and Camden, and an independent auditing of the state's health benefits plan.
There were only a few moments of genuine sparring on the debate stage, most notably an angry exchange between Rep. Josh Gottheimer and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka when Gottheimer said as governor he would make sure New Jersey gets its share of federal dollars back. Baraka said this confused him.
'I'm trying to figure out why they have to wait to become governor to get more money back from the government, because that's their job as Congress people,' Baraka said. 'You should not wait to become the governor to do that for us today. That's his job today.'
Gottheimer, saying he wanted to 'fact check' Baraka, said he's helped the 5th Congressional District, which he represents, win more federal dollars than his predecessors.
'In my district, because we've been working with our mayors, we're up 357% since I've been in Congress,' Gottheimer said.
'We're talking about the whole state here, we're not talking about your district,' Baraka said.
There appears to be little love lost between these two. During last week's debate, Gottheimer snapped at Baraka when Baraka kept giving Gottheimer condescending pats. And during one of Gottheimer's answers Sunday on public worker health care costs, Baraka could be heard saying, 'He has no idea what he's talking about.'
Two candidates, Fulop and Gottheimer, urged people to keep using Newark airport despite weeks of news about long delays and problems with air traffic control equipment. 'People should keep flying out of Newark,' Gottheimer said. For what, Jersey pride? No, thanks.
Former state Sen. Steve Sweeney was in a fighting mood. About the problems at Newark airport, Sweeney pooh-poohed writing letters to federal officials seeking help, as our current governor has done. 'Drag their asses into a hearing … Let's start breaking their you-know-whats,' he said. Later, while accusing New York of bullying New Jersey with its congestion pricing toll, Sweeney said, 'When you deal with a bully, you punch them right in the nose and they pay attention.'
During Baraka's closing argument, he noted that some of his rivals have engaged in a whisper campaign that, should he win the June 10 primary, he would be unelectable as a general election candidate.
'I'm going to tell you why they say I'm not electable. One, because I'm from Newark. Two, because I'm too progressive. And three, because I'm too black. Well, I like being from Newark. I like being from Newark. As a matter of fact, I think because you're closest to the problems, you're closest to the solutions. I also like being progressive. I like being progressive and standing on my progressive values. I think that's what brings us together. And I can't do nothing about being black. God made me beautiful and amazing on purpose,' he said.
Many of the candidates are running campaigns based on the idea that voters will want something different after eight years of Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat. Sweeney, who was in the Legislature for 20 years and led the state Senate for about a decade, said voters should instead pick an insider.
'I'm the candidate that understands the inside and out of Trenton. You know, you always hear, we need an outsider to change things. Well, you know what happens? They come there and after two years, they figure it out — now they're running for reelection and unfortunately it's too late,' he said.
Gottheimer, repeating something he's said many times on the campaign trail, griped that property taxes are high because there are too many towns in New Jersey with their own bureaucracies.
'Instead of buying in bulk, as I said, we pay Wawa prices instead of Costco prices for health care, for salt on our roads, and then what happens is all this gets fed into our property taxes that are killing people,' he said.
I continue to be baffled by this talking point because I've always found items at Wawa to be pretty cheap. They also have free air for your tires and that line is always long.
Baraka quipped, 'I don't want my health care from Wawa or Costco.'
Fulop argued that voters should send a mayor to the governor's mansion, saying, 'You haven't had one for 20 years.' That's right, and that former mayor-turned-governor was … Jim McGreevey.
There are five men running for the GOP primary, but you wouldn't know it from Sunday's debate, when only one of them — former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli — was the focus of Democrats' attacks. Ciattarelli was the GOP nominee for governor in 2021, he has led in all of the public polling of this year's race, and he has the endorsement of Donald Trump, so Democrats on Sunday treated him as the presumptive Republican nominee. Sherrill opened her remarks with an attack on Ciattarelli, not on any of the men vying with her for the Dem nomination in three weeks.
'We know what the stakes are. We know Jack Ciattarelli has promised to DOGE New Jersey. Trump has said he's '100% MAGA.' He said he's going to not stand up to Trump on anything and go along with everything. And we also know that he said he's going to cut funding for Planned Parenthood and put in place an abortion ban,' Sherrill said.
The debate was looooooong. After two hours and 30 minutes on the stage, the six candidates later did solo press conferences. I overheard Baraka ask one of his aides what time his press conference started. '9:50,' the aide said. Baraka responded, '9:50?!' before adding an expletive.
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