Timberlake has little money, but it doesn’t matter

Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake (D-East Orange) hasn’t raised much money in her bid to win the remaining 14 months of Sheila Oliver’s unexpired term, but she doesn’t have to.

Democrats have a 6-1 voter registration 34th district, which includes East Orange, Montclair and Clifton.  The district has 77,067 Democrats, 12,586 Republicans, and 50,757 unaffiliated voters who lean strong Democratic.

Timberlake has raised just $2,825 so far and has $1,063 cash-on-hand.

Republican Irene DeVita and Independent Clenard Childress have not reported raising anything.

Timberlake, 32, won a special election convention in January to replace Oliver, who had been elected Lt. Governor and re-elected to the Assembly in 2017.  She gave up her seat on the Essex County Board of Freeholders to take the Assembly seat.

Childress, a minister at the New Cavalry Baptist Church in Montclair, is making his seventh bid for the Assembly.  He won 5% of the vote against Oliver and Tom Giblin in the 2005 Democratic primary, lost as a Republican in 2007 by more than 8,000 votes, was an unsuccessful independent candidate in 2009 and 2011, took 1% against Oliver and Giblin in the 2013 primary, and received 3% as an independent candidate in 2015.