Latest news with #DemocraticNomination
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democratic governor hopefuls concede race, vow to keep seat in Dem hands
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop conceding defeat in the race for the Democration gubernatorial nomination at Zeppelin Hall in Jersey City on June 10, 2025. (Reena Rose Sibayan for New Jersey Monitor) The Democrats who lost their party's nomination for governor to Rep. Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday said they will fight to unite the party and keep the governorship in Democrats' hands in November. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka told supporters at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark that Democrats have to make sure Sherrill's November opponent, Republican former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, 'does not win.' Initial results show Baraka coming in second place, about 100,000 votes behind Sherrill. 'What we're facing is dangerous and ugly and terrible. And terrible. So we have to bring the party together statewide,' said Baraka. 'We have to keep fighting and pushing and fighting and pushing and fighting and pushing for working-class families. And I keep saying that because I'm from Newark.' Baraka's campaign was jolted in the last month by his arrest by federal agents for trespassing at an ICE jail in Newark, a charge authorities quickly dropped. He described his campaign's progress as proof that working-class people can defy expectations and build a powerful, grassroots movement, adding, 'People didn't think we would make it this far.' 'This is the beginning. It's not the end of anything. We want to build a broad-based coalition across this state of community activists, of union, of labor, of progressives across the state of New Jersey, across zip code and nationality, across religion and how you identify,' Baraka said. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop called Tuesday a 'tough, tough, tough night' while addressing supporters at Zeppelin Hall in Jersey City. 'The state is at a crossroads, and although tonight wasn't what we wanted, it's important that we work hard to make sure a Democrat gets elected in November. That's important,' he said. Fulop, who will end his third term as Jersey City mayor this year, said he and his wife would be taking a vacation now that the campaign is over. Fulop first announced his gubernatorial run more than two years ago. 'Life goes on, and we'll continue to fight, make a better Jersey City, and we'll fight for a better state of New Jersey when we're back here,' he said. Sherrill won a resounding victory, nabbing the win in all but five of the state's 21 counties, according to preliminary vote totals. Late Tuesday, she was leading with 34% of the vote, with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka in second place with 20%, and Fulop in third with 16%. Rep. Josh Gottheimer won 12%, teachers union president Sean Spiller captured 11%, and former state Sen. Steve Sweeney was in last place with 7%. Gottheimer conceded his loss while speaking on a stage at a union hall in Paramus alongside his family. Gottheimer, who campaigned on a dramatic pledge to reduce property taxes by 15%, said he'll continue to fight for the Fifth Congressional District — which he has represented since 2017 — and will 'never, ever stop fighting to protect Jersey.' Former state Sen. Steve Sweeney said he called Sherrill to congratulate her on her win. 'While the outcome is not what we hoped for, I couldn't be more grateful to every supporter, volunteer, and voter who believed in my campaign and my vision for New Jersey,' he said on social media. In a statement, teachers union president Sean Spiller congratulated Sherrill while also painting his defeat as one at the hands of 'wealthy special interests and insiders.' Spiller's campaign was fueled by the support of an outside group that spent around $40 million boosting his campaign, with funding entirely from a separate super PAC linked to Spiller's union. 'I'm incredibly proud of the work we did to drive forward issues of fairness and affordability and proud of the thousands of grassroots supporters who came together to support our campaign,' Spiller said. Baraka, meanwhile, left the door open to a change in the results. 'Look, the vote's still coming in, y'all. They didn't count Newark, Paterson, or Passaic or any of these places yet. Those votes are still coming in. The night is still early. Listen, we're going to go to sleep and wake up in the morning and see what happens. God bless y'all,' he said. Clerks in Essex and Passaic counties reported Tuesday night that most of the voting precincts in Newark and Passaic had completely reported their results, while many of Paterson's precincts had not yet been reported. Juliana DeFrancesco, 18, was one of Baraka's roughly 160,000 suporters. DeFrancesco, who voted Tuesday at a Ewing community center for only the second time ever, said cast her ballot for Baraka because he has 'a lot of really important social opinions.' 'I think he's a really good, qualified candidate. I like how he speaks, and I like that he stands up for all people, and I think that's really important,' DeFrancesco said. 'That's kind of like what this country was founded on, making sure everybody's equal, everybody has opportunities to get what they want, so I think that's really important.' Dana DiFilippo and Morgan Leason contributed. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Florida 2026: David Jolly governor campaign announcement coming soon
Former Congressman David Jolly, who's been traveling the state laying the groundwork for a 2026 run for governor, plans to announce his decision in the coming days. 'I expect a decision this week,' he said in a brief interview Saturday night at the Broward Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner. 'I'll make a final decision and make it public this week.' A Jolly candidacy for the Democratic nomination seems all but certain. He's been holding town halls throughout Florida and meeting with grassroots activists, elected officials and people who can help with fundraising. Jolly said Broward, the county with the largest number of registered Democrats in the state, is essential to a statewide campaign. 'In many ways the governorship runs through Broward County. If we have (robust) turnout numbers among Broward Democrats but also among Black voters here in Broward and in South Florida, we win the governorship,' Jolly said. 'And so I think what you're seeing here is a coalition emerging that realizes we can win statewide in '26, but we've got to do our work to turn voters out and to persuade voters who maybe haven't been with us before to be with us.' Jolly is from Pinellas County, but is familiar to many Democratic activists from his post-congressional time as a political commentator on MSNBC, a favorite cable news source for Democrats. He was a Republican for most of his life. While he was still a Republican member of Congress, he urged Donald Trump to drop out of his first presidential race in 2015, after Trump said Muslims should be banned from entering the U.S. In 2018, Jolly left the Republican Party and became a no-party affiliation/independent voter. In April, he registered as a Democrat and Florida 2026, which can be used for raising and spending political money. The Florida 2026 website highlights a range of issues Jolly would highlight during a campaign, including the high cost of property insurance, inadequate public school funding, 'restoring reproductive freedom,' — which means abortion rights — campaign finance and ethics reform, and reducing gun violence. David Jolly entices Florida Democrats with dream of winning 2026 governor's race DeSantis says anyone running for Florida governor as a Democrat is 'dead meat' Florida's 2026 governor race: Would third-party candidates lock in another Republican victory? At the Democratic dinner, Jolly and his wife Laura sat at a table with Mitchell and Sharon Berger. Mitchell Berger, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who has decades of political experience as a major national fundraiser for Democratic presidential, gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidates, was a close associate of former Vice President Al Gore, has previously said he'd be fully committed to a Jolly candidacy. Anthony Man can be reached at aman@ and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
Daily Mail
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Jake Tapper reveals blunt message he told staff while Biden imploded onstage during infamous debate
Jake Tapper revealed that he was so shocked by Biden's performance during his debate with Donald Trump that he began to quickly message 'Holy F***' to his producers. The CNN anchor opted instead to write 'holy smokes' while moderating the now-infamous face-off that ultimately cost Biden the Democratic nomination. Tapper has been under fire ahead of the release of his tell-all book 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.' Critics argue that Tapper himself was directly involved in the cover-up he now is dissecting. During a wide-ranging interview with Megyn Kelly, Tapper accepted that he missed the mark during Biden's four-year term, but has offered a glimpse into his horror while moderating the debate. 'That front row seat was really disturbing,' he said, later describing Biden's performance as an act of 'self-immolation.' Tapper revealed he and fellow moderator Dana Bash had iPads which they used to communicate with their production team throughout the debate. Early on, Tapper sent a message to his crew backstage. He didn't know which staff were working, so he 'tried to keep it clean.' 'I wrote "holy smokes,"' he told Kelly. 'I wanted to write "holy f**k."' Around the same time, Bash slid him a piece of paper, with her own message on it. It read: 'He just lost the election.' 'It was - I don't think this is hyperbole at all - the worst debate in the history of presidential debates going back to 1960.' The aftermath of Biden's rambling performance was chaotic as Democrats scrambled to save face and - most importantly - remove Biden from the running. It was just five months out from the election and Trump was rapidly gaining momentum, shoring up his base and connecting with new voters who were struggling with the cost of living crisis and horrified by Biden's clear cognitive decline. Tapper acknowledged this in his sit-down with Kelly, telling her: 'We all watched President Biden age. We all watched his gaffes. We all watched these moments that were uncomfortable and obviously representative of a decline going on. 'But there was something about that debate that was utterly shocking.' Tapper accepted that 'maybe you and your listeners were not shocked.' Kelly agreed. 'It was one of those shocked but not surprised moments for us,' she said. Tapper recalled the moment Biden shuffled out onto the stage 'as had been going on for years because of his degenerative spine', which he said the White House had also lied about. 'He has a cold also, so his voice is thinner... he's obviously coughing a lot.' The first answer Biden gave was 'not good', but it was the second lengthy answer during the economics segment in which he completely unraveled. Tapper offered muted praise to Trump for showing restraint when he was handed plenty of ammunition to go on the attack. 'Trump was obviously very Trump-y during the debate,' Tapper said. 'He did his thing. If you like it, you like it, and if you don't, you don't. 'For Trump, given what was going on to his left, he was fairly restrained. He wasn't really commenting on the self immolation that was going on. 'I think he only made one comment about Biden's incoherence.' Trump told the crowd at one stage in the debate: 'I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either.' Tapper said after the debate, Biden required help getting off the stage from his wife, Dr Jill. It was just one step down. But he was even more shocked by Biden's post-debate reaction. Rather than show distress or overt concern about his poor performance, he seemed blasé about the showdown. 'They didn't really seem to have any idea that this has been as bad as it was,' Tapper revealed. 'He said something awkward, ''sorry about my cold'' and something about how much Trump lies... and he says, ''I guess we'll go see what the commentators have to say''.' 'You think... did I just see that?' Despite Tapper's horror at the evening, he has now admitted that he did not fully report on Biden's senility when interviewing the former president over the years. 'Knowing what I know now, obviously I feel tremendous humility about my coverage,' Tapper told Kelly, while also admitting that 'conservative media was correct' in how it handled the story. The former Fox News anchor asked why Tapper didn't grill Biden during a 2022 interview, after the president called out for a colleague who had died nearly two months earlier at an official event. 'You covered the Biden presidency aggressively throughout the four years, but you barely covered his mental acuity,' Kelly said. 'Time and time again, when issues came up, you seemed to be running cover for the president. You didn't seem interested.' Kelly also brought up a now-infamous 2020 exchange between Tapper and Lara Trump, during which Tapper shamed her for mentioning Biden's 'cognitive decline.' 'That Lara Trump interview, for example, she saw something that I did not see at the time, 100 percent, and I own that,' Tapper explained of the tense interview with Donald Trump's daughter-in-law. In it, Tapper had blasted her for bringing up Biden's tendency to stutter during a conversation about Biden's mental acuity. 'And when you sat with him again... you didn't ask him about it,' she said, referring to an October 2022 interview Tapper conducted with Biden. 'You didn't follow up on the fact that he was falling up the stairs that he was losing his train of thought regularly. That he was slurring, that he was incomprehensible, that he was getting lost on the White House lawn.' 'You sat right across from him and you asked none of that, notwithstanding the fact that he had promised you he would be fully transparent about his health issues.' Tapper acknowledged that Biden's mental state was 'not covered sufficiently' by stations like CNN and that 'conservative media was right.' 'There should be a lot of soul-searching not just among me but among the legacy media to begin with - all of us - for how this was covered or not covered sufficiently,' he said. 'I wish I could do differently.' 'Conservative media absolutely has every right to say, "We were hip to this and the legacy media was not,"' he added. Biden this week revealed he has been diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer, sparking a wave of new concerns about his health in the White House.
