Seven Democrats have successfully filed to run in Thursday’s special convention to fill the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark)’s spot on the November ballot: Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver, Linden Mayor Derek Armstead, Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker (D-Jersey City), former Payne staffer Shana Melius, community college professor Sheila Montague, teacher John Flora, and former Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-West Orange).
That means that five candidates who will appear on voters’ ballots in today’s special Democratic primary for the same seat – former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks, economic development official Darryl Godfrey, Democratic district leader Alberta Gordon, activist Debra Salters, and law professor Eugene Mazo – will not have the ability to compete for the chance to serve a full term in Congress.
Claybrooks and Salters both attempted to file for the convention, but were rejected for not collecting the two necessary signatures from a nominator and a seconder; Godfrey, Gordon, and Mazo didn’t file at all. If any of them were to win the primary – which is unlikely, given that McIver is the clear frontrunner – they would be replaced after just a few months by the winner of the convention.
Stanley, meanwhile, is not a candidate in the special election, so voters will not have the chance to choose him for the remainder of Payne’s current term. His strategy, which will probably not be a successful one, rests on convincing convention delegates to ditch whoever wins today’s primary and choose him instead.
When Payne died in April, Gov. Phil Murphy scheduled a special election to succeed him, but it was already too late to replace Payne’s name on the June primary ballot. Payne thus won the Democratic primary uncontested, triggering a special convention of the Essex, Union and Hudson County Democratic organizations to choose a replacement for the general election.
That created an odd double election: one decided by special primary voters for the term ending January 2025, and another decided by a few hundred convention delegates for the next full House term. And there’s no requirement that the same person be chosen by both.
In all likelihood, the drama at the convention will be minimal, since McIver, the choice of nearly all party leaders in the 10th district, is favored to win the primary today. If McIver does indeed win, then she’ll be able to go to the convention as the choice of both the voters and the party leaders, advantages which would almost certainly be insurmountable.
But on the off-chance that McIver doesn’t win the primary, things will get much more interesting; convention delegates will have to decide whether they want to forge ahead with McIver anyways or obey the will of the voters, whatever that may be.
If that does come to pass, the list of who did and didn’t file to make the convention will become much more important. The absence of Claybrooks and Godfrey is especially notable, since they are two of the four candidates – the others being Walker and Armstead – who are generally seen as McIver’s closest competitors.
Godfrey has spent more money on the race than anyone outside of McIver, and a case could be made that he’s the next-most likely candidate to win. Were that to happen, his failure to file for the convention means that he’d only serve a three-month stint in Congress before the unfinished term ends in January 2025 and a new congressperson would take over.
(Republicans have fielded a candidate, Carmen Bucco, but the Newark-based 10th district is one of the most Democratic in the nation, and Democrats are all but certain to win both the September special election and the November general election.)
This morning, eight special primary candidates – Armstead, Claybrooks, Godfrey, Melius, Montague, Flora, Salters, and Mazo – complained that candidates were not given enough time to gather the requisite nominators and seconders and implied that McIver, the preferred candidate of the Essex County Democratic organization, was being given an inside edge. (The convention was announced last Thursday, and candidates were given four days to file their paperwork.)
“The notice, the schedule, and the proposed rules appear to be an attempt to rig the system for the party’s preferred candidate,” the eight candidates said in a joint statement. “It is unclear why the endorsed candidate cannot comply with a fair and equitable nominating process.”
According to the eight candidates, some local Democrats feel pressured by party leadership to support McIver and decline to sign any other candidate’s petition; others, they said, had not received proper notification that the convention was happening at all. A letter sent by attorney Matt Moench on behalf of the candidates insists that the convention be rescheduled for a later date.
“The constituents of New Jersey CD-10 deserve the right to cast their votes, be duly notified of important meetings for their future representatives, and receive sufficient time for the democratic process to occur properly,” the candidates said. “We demand that the state party leadership follow the rule of law and stop interfering with the voice of the people who live in New Jersey’s 10th congressional district.”
Then there’s Stanley, a cousin of Payne’s who lost his seat in the Assembly in 2007 and has been in the political wilderness ever since. Stanley ran for an open Assembly seat last year and got trounced; he then ran at a special convention for the same district a few months later and lost to now-Assemblywoman Rosy Bagolie (D-Livingston). It’s not immediately clear why Stanley chose to compete at the convention but didn’t file to run in the primary.
Assuming McIver wins today, though, all discussions about the convention will probably become moot. McIver prevailing in a proper primary election would essentially turn the convention into a ratification of that election – and given her strong fundraising and endorsement list, that seems like a likely outcome.
This story was updated at 12:30 p.m. with details on a joint statement from eight Democratic candidates protesting against the special convention schedule.