Baraka wins fourth term as Newark mayor

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka easily secured re-election on Tuesday, winning more than 70% of the vote as of midnight against seven opponents.

The next-best performing candidate was Jhamar Youngblood, who received less than 17% of the vote.

Baraka, closing out his third term as mayor of New Jersey’s largest city, easily secured re-election in a two-candidate race in 2022. The mayor faced Douglas R. Davis, Tanisha Garner, Noble Milton, Sheila Montague, Debra Salters, Nasheedah Singleton, and Youngblood. Montague ran against Baraka in 2022 and lost, 83%-17%; it was the largest margin of victory for a Newark mayoral candidate since the city began holding direct elections for mayor in 1954.

Voters sorted through a list of 19 candidates to pick four at-large councilmembers. Three incumbents, Luis Quintana, a councilman since 1994, Lawrence Crump, and Rev. Louse Scott-Roundtree, won re-election, the New Jersey Globe projects. The Globe projects a fourth candidate, Donna Jackson, will win an at-large seat without a runoff.

The fourth at-large incumbent, Carlos Gonzalez, did not seek re-election.

The race for the South Ward council seat will go to a runoff; incumbent Patrick Council received 46% of the vote in a seven-person field, and Asia Norton, with 23% of the vote, will move on to the next round.

In the Central Ward, incumbent Amina Bey defeated former Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield-Jenkins 55%-45%. The race was a rematch of a November 2025 special election for the seat left vacant by LaMonica McIver when she left to take her seat in Congress. McIver is a Baraka ally; Amina Bey, another Baraka friend, won the seat by just 98 votes against Chaneyfield-Jenkins. Chaneyfield-Jenkins got crushed when she ran for mayor against Baraka in 2018, 77%-23%.

Baraka, a former councilman from the city’s South Ward, was first elected in 2014 after Booker resigned to take office as a U.S. Senator. That race was an intense and close one, and Baraka only narrowly defeated former deputy state Attorney General Shavar Jeffries by a 54-46% margin.