Baraka goes after Sherrill in rare negative Dem ad

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s newest ad for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination goes straight for the jugular against the race’s apparent frontrunner, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) – the first time any Democratic candidate has gone directly after another on the airwaves.

Baraka’s spot, which is being backed by half a million dollars on CNN, MSNBC, and broadcast TV, faults Sherrill over two issues that the congresswoman’s political opponents have long harped on: donations from Elon Musk and stock trades. (The existence of the ad at all is a notable departure from last month, when a Baraka spokeperson said the campaign would not spend money on negative messaging against other Democrats.) 

“Mikie Sherrill let us down,” the ad’s narrator intones. “Mikie took $30,000 from Elon Musk’s campaign fund, while Trump attacked abortion access. She made millions on the stock market, tripling her net worth while in Congress, and was then fined for unreported trades.”

The former hit refers to donations Sherrill’s congressional campaign took from SpaceX, the space technology company founded by Musk, whose work under President Donald Trump has since made him a major boogeyman for Democrats around the country. After outcry from many of her primary opponents, Sherrill donated the SpaceX money to charity.

As for Sherrill’s stock trades, Sherrill paid a $400 STOCK Act fee in 2022 because she was months late in disclosing two stock sales related to her husband. (Sherrill’s husband works at the investment bank UBS.)

Baraka’s ad connects that late filing fine to an increase in Sherrill’s net worth, citing a headline on the right-wing site Newsmax claiming that Sherrill “made $7 million from stock trades,” but that’s based on some remarkably bold leaps of logic. A report in the conservative Washington Free Beacon found that Sherrill’s assets had increased from “between $733,209 and $4,321,000” in 2019 to “between $4,840,076 and $13,975,000” in 2024, landing on a speculated $7 million increase because it’s the average of the two broad asset categories.

The ad then contrasts Sherrill with its own preferred candidate: “Ras Baraka is fighting for New Jersey families,” its narrator says. “Under Mayor Baraka’s leadership, crime is down 60%, and Newark is making a comeback. Let’s elect a governor who works for us.”

Sherrill’s campaign pushed back strongly against the ad, taking particular exception to the fact that it cites Newsmax, which paid out a massive settlement earlier this year to a voting machine company over its false claims about the 2020 election.

“This ad is false and Ras Baraka knows it,” Sherrill spokesperson Sean Higgins said. “This is nothing more than an act of desperation by the Baraka campaign to attack a fellow Democrat using disproven, right-wing propaganda from an outlet that had to pay $40 million for spreading Trump’s election lies. And if Mayor Baraka believed this garbage, he had 2.5 hours standing next to Mikie at last night’s debate to address it, but he didn’t. As the press has repeatedly reported, Mikie divested of all individual stocks in 2020 to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, going ‘above and beyond what’s required of her by law and ethics rule.’”

Sherrill has led in every publicly released poll of the six-candidate Democratic race, posting a double-digit lead in a recent Emerson poll. That has led to attacks from nearly all of her primary opponents over various aspects of her record, background, and policy plans; Baraka’s ad marks the first time any candidate has used TV airtime to make those attacks, though with three weeks to go until the June 10 primary, it may not be the last. (Sherrill has also been subject to attacks by an outside group with an unclear stake in the race.)

This story was updated at 12:41 p.m. with comment from Sherrill’s campaign.