Tucker, Onyema win unopposed in LD28

Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) and her running mate, Newark West Ward Democratic co-chairman Chigozie Onyema, have won seats in the 28th legislative district unopposed, the New Jersey Globe projects, with no Republicans or independent candidates making the ballot to run against them.

Onyema, an attorney, will replace freshman Assemblywoman Garnet Hall (D-Maplewood) in the 28th, which includes part of Newark, the Essex County towns of Irvington, Maplewood, and South Orange, and the Union County town of Hillside. Hall became the odd Democrat out after party leaders embraced Tucker and Onyema, and she eventually joined the anti-establishment coalition of Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.

Tucker and Onyema, who had received the party endorsements, easily defeated Hall in the primary.

Tucker’s late husband, Donald Kofi Tucker, served as an assemblyman from 1998 until his 2005 death, and Tucker herself then beat a pair of incumbents in 2007 to reclaim her late husband’s seat. Onyema worked as an assistant commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs under the late Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, and lost a Newark Council runoff election in 2022 to a candidate backed by Baraka.

For some time, it was unclear whether the 82-year-old Tucker, the Assembly’s oldest official, would seek re-election. But her allyship with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who finished second in this year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, meant that once she decided to seek re-election, she would essentially be a shoo-in.

The Democrats faced no opposition. Before the primary, three Republicans on two competing slates filed to run, but in a case of mutually assured destruction, they challenged each others’ petition signatures; the challenges prevailed, forcing all three off the ballot. Even if Republicans had made it to the ballot, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.