Noticias

The Green Party candidate for governor has dropped out of the race, leaving activists until August 21 to gather the 2,000 signatures needed to get a replacement candidate on the ballot.

Stephen N. Zielinski, Sr. sent a withdrawal letter to the New Jersey Division of Elections saying that he was dropping out due to health and personal reasons.

New Jersey election law offers independent candidates the option of picking a new candidate, but only by starting over with new petitions.  If the Green Party is unable to secure a new round of signatures, they won’t have a candidate in the general election.  That’s a different standard from major party nominees, who would be replaced on the ballot after a vote of the respective state committee members.

Zielinski missed the July 28 statutory deadline to pick a lieutenant governor candidate.

In 2024, the Green Party ran candidates for U.S. Senate and in all twelve congressional districts; this year, the party fielded Zielinski and just two Assembly candidates: Robin Brownfield in the Camden-based 5th district and Steve Welzer in the Mercer/Middlesex 14th.

The last three Green Party candidates polled under one-half of one percent: Madelyn Hoffman (2021), Seth Haper Dale (2017), Welzer (2013), Jerry Coleman (2001), and Hoffman (1997); the top Green Party performer in a New Jersey governor’s race was Matthew Thielke, who received seven-tenths of one-percent in 2005.  The Green Party did not field a candidate in 2009.

This was Zielinski’s third bid for public office: he received 1.8% of the vote as the Green Party candidate for State Assembly in the 12th district against Republican incumbents Ronald Dancer (R-Plumsted) and Rob Clifton (R-Matawan) in 2015; and he lost an independent bid for Shrewsbury Borough Council in 1992.

Zielinski and three other Green Party officials did not respond to calls seeking comment

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