When Steve Fulop joined the race for the Democratic nomination for governor last year, he did it without a safety net after already stating that he would not seek re-election to a fourth term as mayor of Jersey City.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka entered the gubernatorial race this week without mentioning his intentions, leaving potential successors in limbo. Baraka could still seek a fourth term in 2026.
If Baraka were to win the governor’s race, City Council President LaMonica McIver would become acting mayor in January 2026 and remain in the post until Newark’s municipal reorganization on July 1.
McIver, a two-term councilwoman from the Central Ward, is viewed as a potential candidate for mayor. So are North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, Jr., who has been in office since 2006, and Patrick Council, a first-term councilman from the South Ward.
Some view Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark) as a potential candidate. Ruiz and McIver could be Newark’s first woman mayor; Ramos and Ruiz would be the first Hispanic mayor.
The last competitive Newark mayoral election came in 2014 when Baraka (then a South Ward councilman), Ramos, Central Ward Councilman Darrin Sharif, and former Assistant New Jersey Attorney General Shavar Jeffries sought the seat after Cory Booker was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Baraka had entered the mayor’s race in February, a month after Booker took his first steps to run for U.S. Senate. By early 2014, Ramos and Sharif had dropped out; Baraka defeated Jeffries, 54%-46%, in the May non-partisan municipal election.
But if Baraka loses, either in the Democratic primary or the general election, he could try to hold on to his mayoral job for another four years. After Kenneth Gibson lost the 1981 Democratic gubernatorial primary, he was re-elected to a fourth term as mayor; he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor again in 1985, and then lost his bid to hold on to the mayor’s job the following year to Sharpe James.
Another former Newark mayor, Vincent J. Murphy, was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1943; after losing the general by 11 points, he was able to win re-election in 1945, but lost when he ran again in 1949. (Murphy later held higher office as the president of the New Jersey AFL-CIO.)
Fulop’s early entry into the governor’s race jump-started the 2025 Jersey City mayoral election: former Gov. James E. McGreevey, Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea, and City Council President Joyce Watterman have already announced their candidacies.