The final debates of the 2025 gubernatorial primaries will be sponsored by the New Jersey Globe, On New Jersey and Rider University and held in May with a substantive 2 ½ hour discussion built around three specific issue topics.
The Democratic debate will be held on Sunday, May 18 with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, and former Senate President Steve Sweeney. Democrats will debate on Taxes and Affordability, Education, and Public Transportation and Development.
The Republican debate is set for Tuesday, May 20 with State Sen. Jon Bramnick, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, and radio personality Bill Spadea. Republicans will debate on Taxes and Affordability, Education, and Crime. Save Jersey is also sponsoring the GOP debate.
In partnership with the County of Essex, both debates will be held at the Essex County Donald M. Payne, Sr. School of Technology in Newark. The inner city school is a state-of-the-art, 320,000-square-foot, $100 million facility built in 2018 with an auditorium that can accommodate hundreds of attendees.
Emmy Award-winning TV personality Laura Jones of On New Jersey, the host of “New Jersey Politics with Laura Jones,” a weekly public affairs show for On New Jersey and MeTV-WJLP New Jersey/New York, will moderate both debates. The panelists are David Wildstein and Joey Fox of the New Jersey Globe, and Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. Some questions will come from Payne school students. Save Jersey editor Matt Rooney will be a panelist in the Republican debate.
“A long-form debate format that focuses on three major categories won’t accommodate sound bites,” said Wildstein, the New Jersey Globe editor. “There will be no opportunity for candidates to avoid outlining the details of their positions.”
Both debates will be closed captioned in English and Spanish.
These debates are presented by Uber.
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Our Sponsors include:
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The New Jersey Globe, with On New Jersey and Rider University – and Save Jersey for the Republicans – sponsored the first two debates in February. Click HERE to watch the Democratic Debate; click HERE to watch the Republican Debate. The New Jersey Globe has sponsored 26 debates since 2000.
NJ PBS and Spotlight News will host the other two debates and for a one-hour “conversations with the candidates” to be held live from their studio in Newark. Spotlight News anchor Brianna Vannozzi and WNYC’s Michael Hill will moderate the Democratic debate, while Hill and David Cruz will handle the Republicans.
The debates were awarded by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission and are mandated under state law as a condition of accepting matching funds under the state’s gubernatorial public financing program.
Three candidates, Democrat Sean Spiller and Republicans Mario Kranjac and Justin Barbera, did not qualify for matching funds and may not appear on the stage of the two officially-sanctioned debates.
WPIX-TV/NJ 101.5, News 12 New Jersey/NJ.com/Star-Ledger online, and the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University were the unsuccessful applicants for one of the four official debates.
Article updated on May 12, 2025