Title: NJ Gubernatorial Primary Campaign Kicks Off

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. The year after the presidential election is often the most interesting year in local politics as people in our area elect a New York City mayor and New Jersey governor. We did our start-of-the-year mayoral race preview yesterday. Now it's a preview of the New Jersey governor's race. Remember, Governor Murphy is term-limited out, so this is an open seat. The Republican field is led by Jack Ciattarelli, who almost beat Murphy four years ago, only lost by three points.

The Democratic field includes two members of Congress, two big-city mayors, a former state senate president, and the head of the statewide teachers union who is also the mayor of Montclair. If this was a week ago, I would have said and a partridge in a pear tree. We will play a short clip from everyone I just mentioned, plus the other Republican hopeful considered the most formidable, the talk show host Bill Spadea.

Our guide for this is Charles Stile, Political Columnist at NorthJersey.com. That's the record, formerly known as the Bergen Record in its print edition. Charlie, thanks for coming on for this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Charles Stile: My pleasure. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Can I start briefly as a segue from our last segment with Congressman Suozzi on national politics before we get going on the governor's race? You wrote an article noting that Elon Musk gave Congressman Tom Kean Jr. a million dollars to help the Republican Kean defend his seat in what was really the only competitive election for Congress in New Jersey this past year, and he did successfully defend it and get reelected. Your article asks, "What will Musk want in return?" What are you getting at with that question? What do you suspect?

Charles Stile: I'm getting more at the dilemma that Tom Kean is going to face. Tom Kean Jr., I guess the real question facing him is is he going to feel indebted to him because of the significant investment that Musk made in his campaign? It was more than a million dollars, by the way. It was about 1.6 if you add in the amount of money he used to attack his opponent, Sue Altman.

The other thing that's hovering over the potential of Tom Kean is the potential of angering Musk, who could quickly, at the turn of a dime, use that same money to finance a primary challenge. I think that probably is less likely, but the threat is there. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Is that a hypothetical concern or is there some position that Kean has had that he believes is in the interest of his district in Jersey that Musk might want him to change on?

Charles Stile: I think mostly a hypothetical but it's a legitimate question to raise heading forward. He's just been returned to Congress and the new Trump-Musk era has yet to begin.

Brian Lehrer: We mentioned the statewide presidential election in Jersey in the last segment in this context. Let me get your take, because Trump only lost by five points in Jersey, less than in the past, but as I've looked at the numbers, he didn't really get any more votes than in 2020.

What happened was Harris got fewer votes than Biden had gotten. What's your best take on where those Democratic voters disappeared to and why?

Charles Stile: I think they just stayed home. I think the Democratic Party took the whole presidential race for granted. "We're a blue state. Trump didn't invest in this race, and we have bigger concerns across the river in Pennsylvania." I think most of the boots on the ground crossed the Delaware to help the Harris campaign in areas like Bucks County, and there really wasn't any mobilization effort for one. Also, I think whatever the Harris campaign was selling in New Jersey just wasn't taking. Particularly among the Latino communities in Passaic and Hudson County. It was really a real wake up call to the New Jersey Democrats.

Brian Lehrer: On to the governor's race. I mentioned the Democrats running include two members of Congress, two big city mayors, a former State Senate president, and the head of the statewide teachers union, who was also the mayor of Montclair. Let's hear some clips and then we'll discuss.

Charles Stile: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, who emphasizes in this clip her leadership abilities and refers, as she often does, to her time in the Navy.

Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill: I've been leading from a very young age, from the time I took an oath at 18, when I entered the Naval Academy, and then went on into the fleet in my early 20s, leading men and women from all over the country and then leading them on missions all over the world. What I learned is you have really got to focus on delivering for people. You've got to focus on actually getting things accomplished.

Brian Lehrer: That's one member of Congress, Mikie Sherrill. Here's the other one. Joshua Gottheimer from his gubernatorial campaign announcement. 20 seconds.

Joshua Gottheimer: I'm launching my campaign for governor to cut your taxes and to make Jersey more affordable again. Back to basics. Your health care costs, utility bills, rent, groceries and taxes. It's all too much and needs to go down. As governor, I will lower taxes and lower costs and help you and your family get ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Those are the members of Congress running for governor on the Democratic side. Now we'll get to the mayors, and here's the mayor of Jersey City, Steve Fulop, who criticizes both of those two members of Congress for running for reelection last year while they were also planning to run for governor right away.

Steve Fulop: It's a very strange and weird approach to outright say, for the last year, "I want to serve you in Congress. I think this is very important. I want to be your congressman because this is an important election." Then get elected to that seat and before being even sworn in, pivoting and saying, "Just kidding, I wasn't being honest with that. I really want to run for governor because I think this is a better position" Most elected officials don't do that.

Brian Lehrer: Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. Here's Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on PBS on one of his top policy priorities.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka: Trying to really push forward a housing policy that works. Beginning to be more present and aggressive around developing affordable housing around the state of New Jersey, sending housing navigators to particular communities and regions, trying to work with them to figure out how to build housing that fits local expectations, but also fits state expectations to build the affordable housing that we need and desire in this state.

Brian Lehrer: There's Mayor Baraka. Here's the mayor of Montclair, who is also the head of the statewide teachers union, Sean Spiller, and he's responding in this clip to a question about using union dues to help fund his campaign.

Sean Spiller: Nobody questions when we have all these millionaires, billionaires who swoop in all the time, and one or two of them exert more influence than, my God, all of us put together, but when you get 200,000 educators who come together voluntarily, who pool our resources and say, "We want our voices to be heard, we want to have a little bit of say in the outcomes that affect us," when we do that, there's a question of, "Well, is it fair that we try to get influence? How are we doing this?"

Brian Lehrer: Sean Spiller. I think I dropped the P when I was introducing the clip. It is Spiller. One more, Steve Sweeney, the former State Senate president from South Jersey. This is from his campaign launch video.

Steve Sweeney: I've gotten a lot done for working people in New Jersey. Bare minimum wage that's indexed, so when costs go up, pay goes up. Family leaves so parents can be there for their kids when it's most important and sons and daughters can care for their elderly parents. We made marriage equality the law because love is love.

Brian Lehrer: There are the announced Democrats running for New Jersey governor. New Jersey listeners, our phones are open. What did you think of Phil Murphy as governor and what are you looking for in whoever succeeds him? You can be from either party or as many New Jerseyans are an independent. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text for Charlie Stile, who is sitting and listening very patiently through all those clips from NorthJersey.com. Man on the Democratic side, that's a battle of the giants, isn't it?

Charles Stile: Yes, it's a crowded bench, no question about it. Giants, that's a relative term.

Brian Lehrer: Within the context of New Jersey Democrats.

Charles Stile: Right. I think that's a fair read, sure.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go through some of these candidates and in the context of some of the clips that we played, Congresswoman Sherrill emphasizing her leadership skills and her time in the Navy, and we'll take the other member of Congress and bundle them in this question, Josh Gottheimer, who was running on affordability in the clip that we played. How would you compare the two of them in terms of what they bring to a gubernatorial primary?

Charles Stile: I think with Sherrill if elected, she would not be the first Democratic nominee. We had Barbara Buono in 2013, but elected, she'd be the first Democrat woman to be elected governor. I think that's going to have a significant appeal to the party, to the grassroots. She flipped her district in 2018 largely with the support of progressives and moderate to liberal women out there in Morris and Essex County. She appeals to that progressive spirit, but at the same time, she's shown an ability to work the inside game with people like the Essex County executive, Joe DiVincenzo, and LeRoy Jones the state chairman.

I think she's been able to fuse that so far. She also has a lot of support from Governor Murphy's political apparatus. Gottheimer forged his name as a consensus builder in Washington with the Problem Solvers Caucus. He basically forged his career as a pragmatic consensus builder, and now he's read the mood and the zeitgeist and has become a champion of affordability. Both of them are, to a degree sounding that message. One of the more interesting things about Gottheimer, the last time we had a governor who cut taxes, it was Christy Whitman more than 30 years ago. It was a Republican. It's striking how similar his rhetoric is.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. In fact, Gottheimer-- by the way, I should give credit to the news organizations in the cases where those clips came from, news organizations. The Gottheimer did not. That was from his own campaign launch announcement, but Mikie Sherrill was on PIX11 with that clip. In 2019 during the first Trump term, Gottheimer got some probably unwanted attention for being the House Democrat who voted the most often with Trump. Would you say that he's relatively to the right in this field?

Charles Stile: I think that's fair. I think he's a Clintonian triangulator, centrist Democrat. I don't think he really disabuses anybody of that notion. When you listen to his campaign rhetoric out of the box, again, as I said, he's sounding this affordability theme and speaking in Trumpian populist tones. "I'm going to cut your taxes. I'm going to lower your food bills," without any real substance behind it. One of the things he says to a confounding degree is, "I'm going to cut both your property taxes and your state income tax as well." If you cut your state income taxes, you're cutting the main supply of property tax relief, so how could you do both?

Brian Lehrer: On Mayor Steve Fulop, Mayor of Jersey City, let me let a caller launch that little stretch of our conversation. A Fulop fan, I believe. Matt, in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Matt: Hey, Brian, thanks for taking my call. I wanted to speak up for Steve a little bit. I'm curious what your guest thinks about my take here, but I felt like most of the candidates-- you had Mayor Baraka talking about building up communities. We just heard about cutting taxes, leadership, and then Steve's was an attack on his opponents. I know those were his words, and I know that where a lot of politics is these days.

Maybe that was a fair first case for people on him, but I feel like he's done a lot of great things for the city here. He's somewhat controversial in terms of gentrification. I'm a big fan because I'm a cyclist and I love what he's done for our safe streets and greenways and a lot of Vision Zero stuff here, but I guess I just felt like he didn't necessarily get as fair a shake as some of the other candidates. I just wanted to highlight some of his strengths perhaps.

I feel like the current governor is not very pro-transit. He wants to build a huge highway for $10 billion through our community, which is maybe another reason I'm hopeful that Steve or another progressive transit candidate wins. I just wanted to share that perspective.

Brian Lehrer: Matt, thank you very much. Does Matt frame the centerpieces? I realize even that is very shorthand. This is just an introductory preview. We'll invite all these people on probably multiple times between now and the primary in June, but how about Matt's call as an introduction to issues that Jersey City Mayor Fulop might run on?

Charles Stile: Yes, I think he's got a point. Fulop, he's covered himself pretty well on this issue because he's been putting up policy positions on transit and housing, the environment early on, as far back as last summer. He's built that platform and has promoted it through his grassroots and social media. To that degree, he is ahead of the field. I think the interesting thing with Steve is that he is hoping to harness some of the same angry, progressive, anti-party machine anger that catapulted Andy Kim to power last year as he vanquished Tammy Murphy.

I think he's something of a wild card in this race and he's giving some of the establishment party leaders reason to pause. I don't think anybody in the establishment really has a finger on the pulse of the grassroots yet and how significant of a political force they're going to be this year, especially without the protection of the county line that they've enjoyed for decades. He's definitely an uncertain presence going forward in this race.

Brian Lehrer: The Fulop clip, by the way, was from an interview on NJ Spotlight News with Charlie Stile from NorthJersey.com right now as we preview the New Jersey gubernatorial primaries, Democratic and Republican, that are going to take place this year with Phil Murphy term-limited out. How about Mayor Baraka?

Charles Stile: I think Mayor Baraka is an interesting candidate and I think he's going to be competing for that same progressive base. They're also targeting urban areas, but also minority-majority suburban areas who they point out to me have performed in underwhelming fashion in the past couple of years, largely because they feel they've been ignored and they believe that those areas are potential gold mines of votes, especially in a crowded Democratic primary.

I think also on the issue of housing, he has put his finger on an issue that transcends race and region. It is a hidden issue of housing. Housing prices are skyrocketing. The availability is really low, especially for people in low and middle-income households. I think that's an issue. It's a sleeper issue, and he's gotten out in front of him.

Brian Lehrer: Introduce people to Sean Spiller. A lot of our listeners who are not really engaged in politics or Jersey politics may know of all the names that we've mentioned so far, they may not know Sean Spiller who was the mayor of Montclair and now is the head of the New Jersey State Teachers Union. Why is she running?

Charles Stile: I think it's one of the strangest candidacies I've ever seen. He doesn't have a traditional political constituency in the party sense. His constituency is the 200,000-plus members of the NJEA who are in every nook and cranny of the state. I think his play is that that constituency could come to his aid in a crowded primary. He might be able to pull off a win and also attract some of the progressive voters out there that Barack and Philip are competing for.

It's interesting because he's so far being funded by an independent expenditure group that is run by former NJEA leaders and members and they've put a substantial amount of money behind his campaign. He started campaigning in the middle of the Senate race this fall, putting out flyers, stuffing Democratic voters' mailboxes with flyers all fall long, almost every day. He's been online, he's had billboard. They've been spending this enormous amount of money to build his name recognition. It's unusual and I think it's rankled a lot of party insiders.

Brian Lehrer: Here's an education-related call. Brian in Rutherford, you're on WNYC. Hi, Brian.

Brian: Hi, Brian. Happy New Year. Hi, Charlie. Thanks for taking my call.

Charles Stile: Sure.

Brian: I'm a middle school educator, 26 years, public schools in New Jersey. That baffled me as well, the Sean Spiller running for governor, and with all my colleagues as well, my peers laughing at it because we don't know much about the man. He apparently is using our dues to fund his political campaign. What we get is essentially once a month a NJEA magazine sent through the mail maybe with his face on it or something like that.

Brian Lehrer: Sounds like you're critical. I'm going to jump in just for time here, Brian, but if you're a middle school teacher, why wouldn't the head of the teachers union be the person you would most gravitate to as most centrally concerned with the issues that would concern you?

Brian: To be honest with you, we feel like we're underpaid right now. We feel like we're under attack with all these indoctrination labels. I know people have their thoughts and views of teachers, but if you really saw what they were doing every day in the classroom in the state of New Jersey, you would be absolutely astonished. These are some of the best educators in the country and we just don't feel that this man represents our values, to be honest with you.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, even though he's the head of the union.

Brian: Even though he's the head of the union. I was wondering which candidate does Charlie believe is the most pro-education candidate besides John Spiller.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Brian. Charlie, very interesting critique, assuming the caller is on the level from a middle school teacher. Have you heard that before?

Charles Stile: I have heard. I think there's some ambivalence among some of the rank-and-file teachers. They, I think, don't want to go through another round of being a punching bag in a political campaign the way they did during the Chris Christie years. I think one of the more interesting goals that might be at play here is that the teachers union knows that there's a good chance that the Republicans because of historical trends, may take the governor's office next year.

If that's the case, that really takes a lot of power out of their hands because they may get a lot of initiatives through the Democratic-controlled legislature, but the buck will probably stop with a Republican governor. That's one thing. Secondly, I think one of the big reforms that Christie pushed through with Steve Sweeney's help back in 2011 was a rollback on health and pension benefits. Under Governor Murphy, they succeeded in softening the blow of the health benefits, but the pension benefit is still a sore point.

Having an NJEA president in the driver's seat in the governor's office gives them perhaps their last chance to roll back what they view as onerous pension cuts. The other part of it is that there are a lot of teachers aging out now over the next 10 years who would stand to retire under those onerous standards.

Brian Lehrer: Reduced pensions. Interesting. By the way, the Ras Baraka clip was from PBS. It's a Steve Adubato One-on-One segment. The Sean Spiller clip was from NJ Spotlight. Finally, you mentioned Steve Sweeney. He was the State Senate president representing South Jersey here, but he lost his seat in the wave election a couple of years ago. Now he's trying to come back and run for governor. Just very briefly because I want to get to the Republicans a little bit before we run out of time, does Sweeney have a shot or is he considered yesterday's news?

Charles Stile: Long shot. Again, if he can consolidate the south in a crowded primary, he might have an opportunity to win, but long shot.

Brian Lehrer: In the election four years ago, Republican, now former member of the Assembly, Jack Ciattarelli lost to Governor Murphy by only three points. Here's Ciattarelli on One-on-One on PBS.

Jack Ciattarelli: On day one Executive order number one, we don't let any town in New Jersey be a sanctuary city and we're not going to be a sanctuary state. I nominate an attorney general who's going to support both police and parents. We get our state workers back to work. Too many are still working from home and it's why you can't get people on the phone. I call for the resignation of all those that sit on the state board of education that has made a number of changes to the public school curriculum that a lot of parents find offensive, and I scrap Phil Murphy's ill-conceived and irrational energy plan. That's day one.

Brian Lehrer: You can tell that we've switched parties here by the things that Jack Ciattarelli was talking about there compared to the Democratic candidates' clips we played. One more, Bill Spadea. He, for those of you who don't know, is a talk show host in New Jersey. Here he is on NJ Spotlight News criticizing Ciattarelli who because he ran four years ago as the nominee is considered the front-runner.

Bill Spadea: The guy does not know how to win and the challenge is because I believe he's not sincere, inauthentic and people see that. Here's a guy that has run twice. Now you come into 2025, there's a solid two-thirds of that support he had in '21 that he does not have now in '25.

Brian Lehrer: There are two others who we aren't going to play clips of today. Ed Durr, who is the trucker who defeated Steve Sweeney in that South Jersey State Senate district, and also Jon Bramnick, a leader in the legislature, but from what I see, Spadea and Ciattarelli are considered the leading candidates. Just handicap this one for us briefly and then we're out of time.

We'll obviously come back to the Republican side in more detail and invite all those candidates on because like you say, New Jersey might not send any Republicans to the United States Senate anymore, but it wasn't that long ago that they elected Chris Christie twice for governor, and Ciattarelli did come within three points four years ago.

Charles Stile: I think New Jersey is far more maroon than people realize on the governor's race. Ciattarelli, in that clip you just played, he sounds more of the center-right candidate he's traditionally been, but he's shifted more towards the Trumpian base and rhetoric and positions lately. Spadea, he's making the case that Citorelli is inelectable and going over his record, but what you don't hear from that is that he is a far right radio host, a facts-denying right-wing radio show provocateur. His electability would really come into question in a general election in New Jersey, which tends to vote more moderate, centrist candidates. It's interesting.

Brian Lehrer: When Ciattarelli announced his campaign, which was back in April, one of the quotes that jumped out was that he's not the kind of Republican who will either call moderate Republicans rinos, Republicans he named only, or call Trump or Trump supporters right-wing craziest. Is that too big a tent for the Republican Party right now, seeing how Trump won all the Republican primaries and caucuses all over the country and MAGA is on the rise?

Charles Stile: I think it is. I think it is too big of a tent right now. I think back then it sounded like a sensible way to navigate a complicated primary, but I think after what happened in November, with 86,000 more Trump votes than in 2020 and as I mentioned before, if you look at some of Ciattarelli's actions recently, I think he's acknowledged that the party has shifted to the right and so he's going to where the voters are.

I still think at the end of the day it's going to be a real challenge for any Republican nominee who was lurched that far to the right to win in November. Republicans have made gains. There are 180,000 more Republicans on the rolls than there were four years ago. They've climbed by 13%. Democrats are stagnant, but at the end of the day, the Democrats still have more than 900,000 registered votes than Republicans. It is a significant advantage. I still think the play is moderation and it's going to be a tough sell if you've embraced MAGA and ran around the primary with a MAGA hat on.

Brian Lehrer: For the primary different from the general. Last question, did I dismiss Ed Durr and Jon Bramnick as Republican hopefuls too much? I don't want to be unfair to them. We'll come back to them in another segment, but do you see this as Spadea vs. Ciattarelli or is it more open than that?

Charles Stile: I don't know. I think it's more open. Ramnick is really staking his claim as a never-Trumper in this environment. I think he's making the electability argument that, "I'm more of a traditional moderate," but he's the flip side of it. How is he going to get through that primary that's all amped up on MAGA fever? That is a challenge. I think the one thing he might be counting on is Trump getting into office and creating upheaval that's unpopular, especially if he starts taking immigrants out of workplaces and homes in New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: Ed Durr?

Charles Stile: Ed Durr, I struggle to see him as a serious candidate. He could probably harm Spadea on his right flank in South Jersey, possibly, but it's early.

Brian Lehrer: That's an experience issue. He only had one term in the legislature after he upended Sweeney, but then he didn't get reelected.

Charles Stile: Yes, he got a lot of buzz and he got some national buzz for doing that, but he didn't really have much of a distinguished career in his one term. He's popular with some folks on the right, but how big his base is, I doubt it. I doubt that he has the reach beyond Salem and Cumberland County.

Brian Lehrer: New Jersey listeners, I hope this was useful. Your first 2025 gubernatorial election preview. The primaries are in June before the November general election. We thank Charlie Stile, Political Columnist at NorthJersey.com aka The Record, for walking us through all those clips and introducing us to all these campaigns. Going to be an interesting year. We look forward to having you back, Charlie. Thanks a lot.

Charles Stile: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

 

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