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Back in 2018, when Democrats were angling to take control of the House of Representatives, lots of swing-district Democratic congressional candidates – including two from New Jersey who ended up winning – made pledges not to take any campaign money from corporate PACs, the committees that corporations use to donate to political candidates and promote their interests. For voters to trust them, they argued, they needed to be free from financial entanglements with big business.

Eight years later, Democrats are once again hoping to take back the House majority, and the Democratic candidates in New Jersey’s most competitive congressional seat are sticking to a similar promise.

All eight Democrats running for the state’s 7th district – climate scientist Megan O’Rourke, attorney Vale Mendoza, physician Tina Shah, criminal justice professor Beth Adubato, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, businessman Brian Varela, former Summit Councilman Greg Vartan, and former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett – told the New Jersey Globe that their campaigns won’t take corporate PAC contributions.

“When politicians accept corporate PAC money, they can become beholden to corporate special interests instead of the people they’re supposed to represent,” Varela said. “By rejecting corporate PAC contributions, I’m ensuring that my only obligation is to the voters of New Jersey’s 7th District. Politics should be about serving people, not the highest bidder.”

“I have never taken corporate PAC money, and never will,” Roth said. “My campaign, like my whole career, is built on serving small businesses and working families in this district… I want people to know I work for them, not special interests.”

(The one candidate who left some wiggle room was Adubato, who said that if a donation came from a “woman-owned corporation that does great things, then maybe I would consider it.”)

The Democratic field’s shared stance is a notable commonality in a contest divided by ideology and background, and could serve as a good-government rallying cry as Democrats try to flip the district. But an Atlantic article from 2018 – when no-corporate-PAC pledges first went mainstream – noted that such commitments may be “mostly symbolic” for now, since corporate PACs don’t typically donate to non-incumbent congressional challengers, and would likely only become meaningful if one of the NJ-7 Democrats wins next November and chooses to stick to their pledge.

Democrats can still contrast their promise with the district’s incumbent congressman, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), who like most Republican politicians has declined to take any kind of similar anti-corporate-money stance. Especially since joining the influential House Energy & Commerce Committee at the beginning of this year, Kean’s fundraising reports have featured plenty of donations from companies like Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, and Google.

Kean has accused Democrats of hypocrisy on the issue, saying that his opponents claim to swear off PAC money but are still willing to accept contributions from individual corporate leaders and benefit from super PAC spending that is, in turn, funded by corporations. That’s a charge Kean leveled at Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) during their first race in 2020, and it’s one his campaign is now repeating against the new wave of Democratic foes.

“How many NJ-07 Democrat candidates will commit to refusing support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee or the House Majority PAC? None,” said Kean spokesperson Harrison Neely, referring to two pro-Democratic groups that spend millions on House races every cycle. (Candidates are barred from directly coordinating with most outside groups, and thus have little control over how those groups raise their money or what they choose to do on their behalf.)

The post In crowded NJ-7 primary, Dem hopefuls swear off corporate PAC donations appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

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Six candidates have filed to run in a non-partisan November special election to fill the Newark Central Ward city council seat left vacant last fall when Democrat LaMonica McIver resigned to take her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is the seat that launched the political career of 29-year-old Cory Booker, who ousted four-term incumbent George Branch in the Central Ward in 1998.

The real fight appears to be between activist Amina Bey, the non-profit Newark Emergency Services for Families executive director, and a political ally of Mayor Ras Baraka, and former City Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield Jenkins, who ran against Baraka in 2018.

One of the candidates is a promising newcomer, Jahmar Youngblood, a former college basketball player who earned a postgraduate degree at Dartmouth, and helped Newark public schools develop mentoring software to help students during the pandemic.

Also in the race: Tammy Holloway, a former investigator in the New Jersey Attorney General’s office; Walter Jacobs; and George M. Tillman, Jr., a businessman who served on the city’s Affirmative Action Review Commission when Booker was mayor.

Three candidates who had announced their bids for McIver’s seat, Bishop Andre Speight, the Central Ward Democratic chairman, former Central Ward Democratic vice chairman Rafael Brito, have dropped out of the race, and tenants right advocate Ryan Talmadge.

Unlike May council races, special elections don’t require a runoff, so the top vote-getter will serve until the winner of the 2026 race takes office on July 1.

The field turned out to be smaller than expected after a new state law that raised the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot for most offices reduced the requirement for a ward council seat to 75.

Chaneyfield-Jenkins sought an at-large city council seat in 1994, but lost in a runoff.  But following the 1995 bribery conviction and resignation of Councilman Gary Harris, she scored an upset victory against former school board member Bessie Walker and seven other candidates.  She was forced into a runoff in 1998 and was re-elected.

In the 2002 Newark Street Fight election between Mayor Sharpe James and Booker, Chaneyfield-Jenkins ran with James.  She was pushed into a runoff but won.

Four years later, after James stepped aside and Booker was the easy winner in the mayoral race against State Sen. Ronald Rice, Chaneyfield-Jenkins found herself in a runoff and lost to future Rep. Donald Payne, Jr.

Chaneyfield Jenkins staged a comeback in 2014, when she forced Central Ward Councilman Darrin Shariff into a runoff in a seven-candidate race that included Speight (10%) and Brito (66%).  She wound up unseating Shariff by 909 votes, 62%-38%.

When she challenged Baraka for mayor in 2018, she lost in a massive 77%-23% landslide; he won 75% of the vote in the Central Ward.

The post Six file to replace McIver in Newark’s Central Ward appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

Lily Benavides, a former New Hampshire state legislator and a first-generation American from Colombia, has filed 2,434 signatures to become the Green Party candidate for governor of New Jersey on the general election ballot, replacing Stephen N. Zielinski, Sr..

Citing a serious health issue, Stephen N. Zielinski, Sr. withdrew from the race earlier this month.   Party leaders picked his running mate, Lily Benavides, to replace him on the ballot, but as a minor party, the only way to secure a ballot position was to reopen the petition process and get at least 2,000 signatures on a new petition.

The deadline to file was 4 PM today.

Benavides, then known as Lily Mesa, was elected to the 400-member, tiny-sized district, New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2006 as a Democrat.  She finished seventh in a field of sixteen candidates for eight seats; Democrats won six of the eight.  The ninth-place finisher was Victoria Bonney, then a 20-year-old college student and now a top aide to Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-Long Branch).  Bonney ran 83 votes behind Benavides, but lost the general election by just 10 votes to Republican Connie Soucy, who went on to serve three terms.

Mesa campaigned as a single, 40-year-old mother of three who worked two jobs while attending Hesser College in a bid to become a paralegal.  She had served on the New Hampshire Civil Rights Task Force.   State representatives in New Hampshire earn $100-per-year, with no staff and no office.

As a state legislator, Benavides introduced a bill to prohibit state and local law enforcement officials from enforcing federal immigration laws.  She did not seek re-election to a second term in 2008, and backed New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for president that year.

This is Benavides’ second race against the Democratic nominee, Mikie Sherrill; in 2024, she was the Green Party candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 11th district and finished third in a four-candidate field with 1.2% of the vote.   She lost a race for the Parsippany school board in 2023.

Zielinski had designated Benavides as the Green Party nominee for lieutenant governor before dropping out of the race, although he never formally submitted her name.

Benavides has tapped Lisa Ryan, a software engineer, to run for LG.

The last Green Party member to hold office in New Jersey was Assemblyman Matt Ahearn (G-Fair Lawn).  As a Democrat, Ahearn, a former Fair Lawn mayor, ousted longtime GOP Assemblyman Nick Felice (R-Fair Lawn) in the 38th district in 2001; he finished 332 votes ahead of another Democrat, Kay Nest, and 667 in front of Felice.  Republican Assemblywoman Rose Marie Heck (R-Hasbrouck Heights) held her seat as the top vote-getter.

After Ahearn was told that the Bergen County Democratic organization would not support him for a second term, Ahearn switched to the Green Party and sought re-election as an independent. He was joined by former Fair Lawn Mayor Bob Gordon and Fort Lee Councilwoman Joan Voss, now a Bergen County Commissioner. Ahearn received 4,357 votes, about 5.4%.

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.

The post Green Party gets new gubernatorial candidate appeared first on New Jersey Globe.