Fulop PAC starts spending money on attack ads against Sherrill

Video courtesy of UMichVoter

After Newark Mayor Ras Baraka began airing an attack ad earlier this week against Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair)’s campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, a super PAC affiliated with Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop is now joining the Sherrill-bashing train.

Coalition for Progress, which has spent millions boosting Fulop’s campaign, is out with a new TV ad that faults Sherrill for her stock trading history, her donations from Elon Musk’s SpaceX PAC, and her choice to leave her seat in Congress behind. That’s very similar messaging to the ad that Baraka, also a Democrat running for governor, is putting on the airwaves.

“Look what Mikie Sherrill’s not broadcasting,” the ad’s narrator says over a pile of TVs showing Sherrill’s own ubiquitous TV ads. “She’s abandoning her seat in Congress just when we need her to stand up to Trump. She took over $30,000 from Elon Musk’s PAC… Sherrill made a killing in the stock market during the pandemic, and was fined for breaking ethics rules by not disclosing trades. And, she’s hand-picked by the political machine. Mikie’s just too risky for Democrats in November.”

It’s not clear how much money Coalition for Progress is putting behind its ad or how widely it’s being spread.

The SpaceX donations to Sherrill’s congressional campaign were the subject of ridicule from her gubernatorial opponents, and she eventually chose to donate the money to charity. As for the stock trading attack, Sherrill paid a $400 late fine in 2022 for two stock transactions related to her husband; conservative media outlets have implied that Sherrill’s trading has led to a massive increase in her personal wealth, though their evidence for such claims is very speculative.

Sherrill’s campaign for governor is indeed supported by a large swath of the Democratic Party establishment, having won solo endorsements from 10 of the state’s 21 county Democratic organizations (the rest are splintered among various candidates). Fulop has repeatedly made the argument that Sherrill is a creature of the party machine – and that her establishment backing could create major vulnerabilities for her in the November general election, when he says voters will be looking to turn the page from the state’s status quo.

Fulop has also, notably, been promoting Baraka’s ad on Facebook, saying in a sponsored post that Sherrill’s “illegal stock trading” is a “toxic issue and dangerous for November if she was the nominee” while linking to a New Jersey Globe story on Baraka’s ad.

A Sherrill spokesperson, Sean Higgins, pushed back strongly on the claims made in both ads, saying that Sherrill sold all of her individual stocks in 2020 and has gone “above and beyond” to avoid any hints of impropriety.

“Steven Fulop is a habitual liar and self-serving career politician who has been spiraling on Twitter for weeks after burning through tens of millions of dollars and failing to gain any traction,” Higgins said. “Fulop didn’t have the guts to take Mikie on at the debate, so now he’s having his dark money, developer-funded super PAC – run by his wife’s business partner – do the dirty work.”

Sherrill has led in every publicly released poll of the June 10 Democratic primary thus far, and she’s used the money she stockpiled to press her advantage during the final weeks of the race. That’s caused many of her primary opponents to begin focusing their attacks on her – and Fulop and Baraka, who have been in second or third place in most recent polls, could have the most to gain.