Good morning, New Jersey: It’s Primary Day!

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Good morning, New Jersey. The most exciting and unpredictable Primary Day in quite some time is finally here.

Polls are open today from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. to decide the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor, State Assembly, and a wide variety of county and local offices. Anyone already registered with either party can vote; if you’re an unaffiliated voter, you’ll be allowed to vote if you declare for one party or the other at your polling location.

And unlike in many prior primaries, everyone in the state will have at least one race on their ballot that’s worth showing up to the polls for. Both parties are hosting expensive, closely watched gubernatorial primaries to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy – eleven candidates are running, and one of them will be the next governor – and a variety of factors has led to an explosion in the number of contested races for the state legislature.

On November 12, 2021, Jack Ciattarelli conceded his loss in that year’s race for governor, but announced that he would run again four years later. Thus began the 2025 gubernatorial campaign – a campaign that some of the state’s most promising and prominent politicians have been preparing for for years.

For Ciattarelli, the groundwork he’s been laying since his unexpected 2021 “launch” seems likely to pay off tonight. Equipped with a financial advantage, a big lead in every poll of the race, and the all-important endorsement of President Donald Trump, the former assemblyman is seen as the clear favorite to become his party’s nominee for governor once again, likely setting up a competitive general election this fall.

Running to dislodge Ciattarelli are four GOP opponents. Former radio host Bill Spadea has been running the most stridently conservative campaign of anyone in the GOP field, but Trump endorsing against him struck a brutal blow; State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), meanwhile, has always been one of the GOP’s few anti-Trump voices, constraining his path to victory among a pro-Trump Republican primary electorate. (The other two contenders are former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac and contractor Justin Barbera.)

The Democratic side of the race is quite a bit more unsettled, although there, too, a slight favorite does seem to have emerged.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) has led in every publicly released poll of the race, even internal polls commissioned by her opponents, albeit often by small enough margins that nothing is set in stone. She’s also got the backing of a critical mass of the state’s Democratic leadership, and her background as a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and four-term congresswoman have proven tough to attack.

Well within striking distance, though, is Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. Fulop has pitched his campaign around the idea that New Jersey voters are in the mood for a wonky, reformist governor, and he’s built up a grassroots army of volunteers and running mates around the state, making him a force to be reckoned with even in areas far from his urban home base.

And Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, the state’s other true big-city mayor, has his own strategy for primary success. A skilled orator who has staked out the field’s leftmost policy positions, Baraka is counting on riding a wave of Black support to become New Jersey’s first governor of color; he’ll need to make sure those voters turn out today after many of them skipped voting early or by mail.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), who like Sherrill has made a name for himself in the state’s congressional delegation, is running on an aggressive affordability-focused message that promises to bring down the state’s high taxes. Former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford), the only South Jersey candidate in the race, has pitched himself as a fighter for organized labor and for a region of the state that’s often left behind. New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller, the former mayor of Montclair, has gotten $40 million in support from his own union, making him perhaps the best-funded candidate in the race.

Spiller hasn’t been the only candidate with a huge amount of money at his disposal, either. Heavy spending from almost every candidate (on both sides) has pushed the race’s price tag north of $120 million, making it the most expensive primary in state history.

That type of spending, combined with the sheer size of the Democratic field – the winner could emerge with well less than 30% of the vote – means that nothing is certain and every candidate has a path to winning. With polls and pundits pointing in a variety of different directions, almost any combination of victor and runner-up seems eminently possible.

Adding uncertainty to the race, too, is the demise of the county line, the ballot design system that once told voters how to vote. Unlike in prior years, this year’s primary voters will see every candidate presented equally.

That uncertainty is magnified in races for State Assembly, where little-known party-backed candidates had long relied on the county line to sail to victory. Twenty-five districts are hosting contested primaries on one or both sides of the aisle this year, far more than in prior years; many of those primaries are Democratic showdowns between party-endorsed candidates and Fulop’s “Democrats for Change” running mates.

A few races in particular are worth watching: 28th district Democrats in Essex County, 31st and 32nd district Democrats in Hudson County, 35th district Democrats in Passaic County, and 37th district Democrats and 39th district Republicans in Bergen County. But state legislative primaries can be unpredictable, fickle things, so don’t be surprised to see some upsets elsewhere in the state, too.

Even just a handful of upset victories could change the tenor of the State Legislature and of future legislative primary campaigns. Every single legislator who won in 2023 did so with the explicit support of their local county party organizations, so anyone who manages to win this year without party backing will bring a very different perspective to Trenton than virtually all of their colleagues.

Some counties are also hosting contested primaries for countywide office, including a knock-down-drag-out brawl in the Democratic race for Hudson County Sheriff. Seventy-seven towns, too, have primaries for mayor, council, and other local offices, including major population hubs like Edison, Camden, Atlantic City, Parsippany, and Plainfield.

As of yesterday, 466,681 voters had already cast their ballots: 148,679 voted during the state’s six-day early in-person voting period, and another 318,002 had returned their vote-by-mail ballots. (That could potentially put the state on track to exceed turnout in last year’s federal primary elections, when 336,902 voters had already voted by the day before Election Day.)

If you haven’t already joined that chorus of New Jerseyans making their voices heard, today’s the day to do so. Happy voting!