This story was originally published on March 25, the day after filing day; now that official candidate lists have been released, this is a new version that has been updated to reflect any subsequent candidate withdrawals and petition challenges.
Conventions are over, petitions are filed, and candidate lists are out: it’s time for primary season in New Jersey to officially begin.
The filing deadline to run in the primary for governor, State Assembly, or any other partisan office up this year was on March 24 at 4 p.m., and 11 gubernatorial candidates and more than 200 Assembly candidates (plus two candidates for a special State Senate election) heeded the call. Both parties are contesting nearly every legislative district in the state, though Democrats make up nearly three-fifths of all candidates who filed.
A handful of other candidates initially filed to run as well, but were barred from the ballot due to issues with their signatures. Legislation signed into law this year increased the number of signatures required for Assembly to 250 (up from 100) and for governor to 2,500 (up from 1,000); some candidates struggled to meet the new requirements, and at least six Assembly candidates were rendered ineligible after challenges to their petitions (as well as a seventh who had residency issues).
Many districts are set to host extremely competitive primaries, and the fight for the governorship is hotly contested on both sides of the aisle as well. And with new legislation in place abolishing the county organizational line and implementing office-block ballots, some county political parties are facing the toughest test of their might in decades.
Here’s who filed for the governorship and for New Jersey’s 40 legislative districts this year; click here or scroll to the bottom of this story for a comprehensive spreadsheet.
Governor
The Democratic field in the governor’s race has remained basically the same for months, and filing day brought no surprises. All six candidates waging real campaigns – former Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford), New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka – did in fact file to run.
And no Democrats but those six serious candidates filed, which is something of an anomaly, historically speaking; the last time zero gadflyish also-rans filed to run in the Democratic gubernatorial primary was in 1985. (Current Gov. Phil Murphy won renomination unopposed in 2021, but only after booting perennial candidates Lisa McCormick and Roger Bacon off the ballot.)
Of the six Democratic candidates, five have qualified for matching public funds, and will appear on the stage at two upcoming primary debates; the odd man out is Spiller, who is running his campaign largely through an allied super PAC and thus didn’t raise enough money on his own to qualify.
The Republican side, meanwhile, was more unsettled leading up to filing day. The three top candidates – radio host Bill Spadea, former Assemblyman and 2021 nominee Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville), and State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) – all filed with little issue, but shortly before the filing deadline, State Sen. Ed Durr (R-Logan) ended his own longshot campaign and announced his support for Spadea.
Two other candidates, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac and contractor Justin Barbera, also filed; Kranjac’s 2,949 petition signatures faced a challenge from Spadea, but he was ultimately allowed to remain on the ballot after a marathon administrative law hearing. Kranjac and Barbera, however, both failed to qualify for matching funds and the GOP debate stage.
LD-35 Senate special (Passaic, Bergen)
State Sen. Benjie Wimberly (D-Paterson) is just two months into his new job as state senator after winning a January special convention to succeed now-Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) by all of one vote – and he’s already on a glide path to re-election for the two years remaining in Pou’s term.
Wimberly avoided drawing any primary opposition; his main would-be foe, Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter (D-North Haledon), decided not to run for Senate after narrowly losing the convention, and in fact isn’t running for re-election to the legislature at all. Wimberly will face Republican Frank Filippelli, a former candidate for Paterson City Council, in November in a district that has moved sharply to the right recently but remains clearly Democratic.
LD-1 (Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic)
Assemblymen Erik Simonsen (R-Lower) and Antwan McClellan (R-Ocean City), who first flipped their deep South Jersey seats in 2019, should be set for re-election in a district that’s become staunchly Republican, but they don’t know yet which two Democrats they’re going to face.
Carol Sabo, the mayor of the tiny town of West Cape May, is among the Democrats running; she’ll face two candidates affiliated with Fulop’s Democrats for Change slate, engineer Carolyn Rush and Princeton student Brandon Saffold, both of whom ran for the 2nd congressional district last year (though Saffold never actually filed petitions). Rush was also one of the co-plaintiffs in Senator Andy Kim’s successful lawsuit against the county line last year.
Because Sabo is running solo, that essentially guarantees that one of Fulop’s candidates will end up making it to the general election no matter what happens with Fulop’s gubernatorial campaign – one of a number of districts across the state where that’s true.
LD-2 (Atlantic)
Atlantic County Democrats and Team Fulop are duking it out in the Atlantic City-based 2nd district; retired attorney Maureen Rowan and Pleasantville Councilwoman Joanne Famularo, who lost a close race for county commissioner last year, are running on the organization ticket, while former Atlantic City Councilman Bruce Weekes and Linwood Board of Education member Lisa Bonanno are on the Democrats for Change slate.
The winners will go up against Republican Assemblymembers Don Guardian (R-Atlantic City) and Claire Swift (R-Margate), who have no primary opponents. The 2nd district could be competitive – Kamala Harris narrowly carried it last year even as she lost Atlantic County – but Guardian and Swift are seen as strong incumbents who will be tough to beat.
LD-3 (Gloucester, Salem, Cumberland)
A looming, bitter Republican primary in the 3rd district collapsed at the last minute, with former Assemblywoman Beth Sawyer (R-Woolwich) and her running mate ending their campaigns a few hours before the filing deadline. That gives Gloucester County Commissioner Christopher Konawel (R-Glassboro) and Harrison Township Committeeman Lawrence Moore, who had already gotten organizational support in much of the district, a clear path to the general election.
And it could be a highly competitive one. Incumbent Assemblymembers Dave Bailey (D-Woodstown) and Heather Simmons (D-Glassboro) flipped their seats from Republicans in 2023 after an expensive contest, and Republicans are looking to flip them right back in a district that has regularly supported Republicans like Donald Trump and Jack Ciattarelli in statewide elections.
LD-4 (Camden, Gloucester, Atlantic)
Assemblymen Dan Hutchison (D-Gloucester Township) and Cody Miller (D-Monroe) won their first terms in 2023 in a hotly contested race, and now they could face a rematch against one of their vanquished Republican opponents: Amanda Esposito, a teacher who came in third place in 2023, is running with Winslow school board member Gerard McManus.
First, though, both sides have to get through their respective primaries. Hutchison and Miller are facing community activist Vonetta Hawkins and Brian Everett, an assistant dean at Rutgers University-Camden, who are on the Fulop ticket; Esposito and McManus have one opponent in Barbara McCormick, a nurse and U.S. Air Force veteran who has the support of the Camden GOP (which is in a bit of an odd place right now) and who lost the Gloucester GOP endorsement to McManus by one vote.
LD-5 (Camden, Gloucester)
Little to see in the safely Democratic 5th district: Assemblymen William Moen (D-Bellmawr) and William Spearman (D-Camden) will face Republicans Constance Ditzel and Nilsa Gonzalez. Fulop had initially recruited Rashan Prailow, a former Obama White House intern, to run against Moen and Spearman in the primary, but he didn’t end up filing.
LD-6 (Camden, Burlington)
Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald (D-Voorhees) and Assemblywoman Melinda Kane (D-Cherry Hill), a former county commissioner just elected at a convention earlier this year to replace Camden County Clerk Pamela Lampitt, are going up against two Fulop challengers: Becky Holloway, a former Clementon school board member who ran against Lampitt in last year’s county clerk primary, and Kevin Ryan, an analytics and data executive. (Ryan and Holloway faced a challenge to their 307 signatures, but prevailed.)
Nurse Peter Sykes and Jack Brangan, who runs a business selling patriotic Christmas products, are set to be the Republican nominees in the strongly Democratic district.
LD-7 (Burlington)
The 7th district, too, has a brand-new legislator in Assemblyman Balvir Singh (D-Burlington Township), a former county commissioner chosen to replace U.S. Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran). Singh has teamed up with Assemblywoman Carol Murphy (D-Mount Laurel), and his opponent at January’s special convention, Moorestown Mayor Nicole Gillespie, isn’t running in the primary; that leaves Bordentown Mayor Eric Holliday, a member of Fulop’s slate, as the only candidate challenging the organization ticket.
Psychologist Dione Johnson and traffic engineer Doug Dillon, who ran for the same deep-blue seat in 2021 and 2023, are unopposed for the Republican nomination.
LD-8 (Burlington, Atlantic)
The district that is perhaps the most competitive in the state could be headed for a complete rematch of its extremely close 2023 contest – but one Democratic challenger hopes to shake things up.
In 2023, now-Assemblywoman Andrea Katz (D-Chesterfield) upset Assemblyman Brandon Umba (R-Medford) by 252 votes in a race that wasn’t called until a week after Election Day. Assemblyman Michael Torrissi (R-Hammonton) won re-election, but he only came a few hundred votes away from losing to Katz’s running mate, Hammonton teachers union leader Anthony Angelozzi.
Both Angelozzi and Umba are now back for another round, and both parties think they have a chance of sweeping the two seats. But the wrinkle on the Democratic side is that former Evesham Councilman Eddie Freeman is running under the Fulop banner after surviving a petition challenge; Freeman says that he’s not targeting Katz and is only interested in winning the nomination against Torrissi, though of course that won’t be clear on the primary ballot (and Katz and Angelozzi are running as a tight team).
LD-9 (Ocean)
Fulop is guaranteed to get at least one Assembly nominee in the 9th district, where Rosalee Keech – the United Nations observer for Protect All Children from Trafficking (PACT) and a former frequent candidate for local office in Morris County – and disability advocate Donald Campbell face just one county party-backed opponent, former paralegal Lisa Bennett.
The Democratic primary, though, will only confer the honor of losing to Assemblymen Gregory Myhre (R-Stafford) and Brian Rumpf (R-Little Egg Harbor) in the dark-red district.
LD-10 (Ocean, Monmouth)
Similar to the 9th district, Team Fulop is running two challengers in the 10th district – South Toms River Democratic municipal chair Debra Di Donato and retired professor Phil Nufrio, who has run for local office in Ocean County before – while Ocean County Democrats are only running one, Janine Bauer, who served as an interim county freeholder in Essex County in 2018.
And once again, just like in the 9th district, whichever Democrats make it through the primary have little hope of actually winning; Assemblymen Paul Kanitra (R-Point Pleasant Beach) and Gregory McGuckin (R-Toms River) should have no trouble earning re-election.
LD-11 (Monmouth)
The matchup in the 11th district, one of the most competitive seats in the 2023 elections, is already set: first-term Assemblywomen Margie Donlon (D-Ocean Township) and Luanne Peterpaul (D-Long Branch) face no primary opposition, and neither do their prospective GOP opponents, real estate professional Jessica Ford and former Neptune City Mayor Andrew Wardell.
LD-12 (Monmouth, Ocean, Middlesex, Burlington)
Only two Democrats filed to run in the strongly Republican 12th district, but they’re running on different slates. Refugee counselor Freshta Taeb is on Fulop’s Democrats for Change slate, while “social entrepreneur” and former local candidate Kyler Dineen is the lone organization candidate.
Republican Assemblymen Rob Clifton (R-Matawan) and Alex Sauickie (R-Jackson) have no primary opposition and are likely to win new terms easily.
LD-13 (Monmouth)
Assemblymembers Vicky Flynn (R-Holmdel) and Gerry Scharfenberger (R-Middletown) are among the few incumbent Republicans facing a primary challenge this year; Rich Castaldo, a businessman and film director who shares a slogan with a larger renegade Monmouth GOP slate, is taking them on.
Both sides of the primary tried to kick the other off the ballot: Castaldo argued that certain signatures intended only for Scharfenberger had been improperly used for Flynn, while the campaign arm of the Assembly GOP attempted to prove that Castaldo’s petitions were marred by widespread fraud. Two administrative law judges, however, decided there wasn’t enough evidence in either case to warrant rendering anyone ineligible, and Castaldo will also be allowed to keep his original “Monmouth County Conservative Republicans” slogan that he was initially barred from using.
Democrats don’t have a contested primary of their own; Jason Corley, Long Branch High School’s athletic director, and Vaibhav George are running unopposed with the Democratic organization’s support.
LD-14 (Mercer, Middlesex)
Assemblymembers Wayne DeAngelo (D-Hamilton) and Tennille McCoy (D-Hamilton), the two winners of 2023’s most convoluted convention battle, were set to face a lone Fulop-affiliated challenger in Dave Luciano, an environmental specialist at the New Jersey Department of Education. A challenge to Luciano’s 278 signatures was successful, however, meaning that the two incumbents are now unopposed in the primary.
Republicans are running a slate of Marty Flynn, the GOP’s nominee for mayor of Hamilton in 2023, and Joseph Stillwell, the vice chair of the Mercer County Young Republican Federation (and a replacement for initial GOP pick Alisha Ferenczi, who apparently withdrew after the filing deadline); the 14th district was once one of the state’s most competitive, but Republicans are not widely expected to make a serious run for it this year.
LD-15 (Mercer, Hunterdon)
As things stand right now, Assemblymembers Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Trenton) and Anthony Verrelli (D-Hopewell Township) are the only two legislators guaranteed to be re-elected; they drew zero Democratic or Republican opponents in the deep-blue 15th district. But Republicans could still try to contest the district by running write-in candidates, who would need to receive at least 250 votes in the primary election – matching the number of petition signatures they’d have needed to make it to the ballot.
LD-16 (Somerset, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Mercer)
Assemblymembers Mitchelle Drulis (D-Raritan Township) and Roy Freiman (D-Hillsborough) face a primary challenge from activist and family business owner Mahmoud Desouky. Desouky, a 24-year-old Rutgers University alumnus who will soon attend law school, is one of the rare progressive primary challengers who isn’t aligned with Fulop’s slate.
Hillsborough Committeewoman Catherine Payne and Raritan Township Committeeman Scott Sipos are running unopposed for the GOP nominations. In a red wave, the seats could be within reach for the Republicans, but Drulis and Freiman won’t go down easily; the pair is battle-tested in the district after a feisty 2023 election, which they won by a combined 12 percentage points.
LD-17 (Middlesex, Somerset)
Entering this cycle, few Democrats had a larger target on their backs than Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-Franklin), the sponsor of a much-maligned OPRA reform bill. For months, there was speculation that Danielsen and Assemblyman Kevin Egan (D-New Brunswick), who was installed in 2023 when his father ended his re-election campaign after the primary was over, could face primary challengers, especially as two white men representing a district that’s only 26% white.
But only one Democrat signed up to challenge the incumbents: Piscataway Board of Education member Loretta Rivers, who is running on Fulop’s Assembly slate and who beat back an attempted petition challenge.
Two Republicans filed in the district, Susan Hucko and Patricia Badovinac, both of whom have already lost campaigns in this deep-blue district.
LD-18 (Middlesex)
Assemblymen Robert Karabinchak (D-Edison) and Sterley Stanley (D-East Brunswick) will seek re-election in this district anchored by Edison and East Brunswick, and they’re set to face perennial Democratic challenger Christopher Binetti, an advocate against the discrimination of Italian Americans. Air Force veteran and Edison police lieutenant David Tingle had also filed to run on Fulop’s slate, but he withdrew from the race after a challenge revealed he had too few valid signatures.
South Plainfield Councilwoman Melanie Mott and podiatrist Eugene DeMarzo filed as Republicans, but it’ll be uphill sledding for them in the solidly Democratic district.
LD-19 (Middlesex)
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez (D-Perth Amboy) likely have an easy path to re-election in the 19th district.
A sole primary challenger unaffiliated with any larger slate, Michelle Burwell, filed to take them on; Burwell’s petitions were challenged in court, but she was ultimately allowed to remain on the ballot. Burwell attempted to primary 19th district State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Woodbridge) in 2023, but she was handed a 72-point defeat.
Maria Garcia and Marilyn Colon, Republicans who both lost legislative races in 2023, filed for another chance; the 19th district has been close in recent statewide elections, but it’s hard to see Coughlin or Lopez losing.
LD-20 (Union)
The 20th district is home to one of the few open seats this cycle, as Assemblyman Reginald Atkins (D-Roselle) decided not to seek re-election after two terms in the lower chamber.
Union Democrats had lost confidence in Atkins’ ability to win a line-free primary, so Union County Commissioner Sergio Granados (D-Elizabeth) replaced the legislator on the party’s ticket. Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth) is seeking re-election and has bracketed with Granados.
Elizabeth-based Democrat Eduardo Rodriguez, who served as planning and community development director in Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage’s administration, is running a challenge under the “Union County Democrats Meeting the Moment” slogan alongside Walter Wimbush, a Roselle resident and youth mentor.
The safely Democratic district had attracted two Republican candidates, tailor and perennial candidate Carmen Bucco and Army veteran Richard Tabor – but Democrats successfully argued that Tabor lives primarily in Evesham, not Elizabeth, and an administrative law judge ordered him to be removed from the ballot. That makes the district one of the few not to have a full complement of candidates from both parties.
LD-21 (Union, Somerset, Morris, Middlesex)
The 21st district could prove to be one of the tightest general elections come November, but there will be little drama in the June primary.
Assemblywomen Michele Matsikoudis (R-New Providence) and Nancy Muñoz (R-Summit) face no GOP opponents after a challenge from former Summit GOP municipal chairman Steve Spurr failed to materialize. Meanwhile, only two Democrats – former prosecutor Andrew Macurdy and Garwood Councilman Vincent Kearney – filed to run.
The general election will be a dogfight, and Macurdy’s nearly 1,300 signatures show significant energy behind his campaign. Keep an eye on this race come fall.
LD-22 (Union, Somerset)
The 22nd district’s primaries are also noncompetitive, and the very blue district will also lack the intrigue of a tight November race. Assemblymembers Linda Carter (D-Plainfield) and James Kennedy (D-Rahway) do not face primary opponents, and neither do Republican candidates Jermaine Caulder and Lisa Fabrizio.
LD-23 (Warren, Somerset, Hunterdon)
Assembly Minority Leader John DiMaio (R-Hackettstown) and Assemblyman Erik Peterson (R-Franklin) are free of a primary challenge – though DiMaio probably wishes he were instead on his way to the State Senate right now, which would have likely happened had sitting State Sen. Doug Steinhardt (R-Lopatcong) not turned down a nomination to be U.S. Attorney.
Democrats Guy Citron and Tyler Powell both lost races for the same district in 2023 and face no opposition for this year’s Democratic nominations.
LD-24 (Sussex, Morris, Warren)
After a competitive primary in 2023, Republican incumbents Dawn Fantasia (R-Franklin Borough) and Michael Inganamort (R-Chester Township) appear to have smooth seas to a second term.
The pair face no GOP challengers for their safely Republican seat, and their Democratic challengers come in the form of county party-endorsed attorney Eugene Grinberg and Fulop-backed ranked-choice voting advocate Steve Barratt – one of a handful of Democratic mixed marriages in Assembly races this year.
LD-25 (Morris, Passaic)
An interesting situation has developed in Morris County’s 25th district: the two Democrats who filed, Morristown Councilman Steve Pylypchuk and Morristown Planning Board member Marisa Sweeney, are both aligned with Steve Fulop rather than with the county party. Morris Democrats simply never recruited their own slate after Fulop’s was announced, meaning that two of Fulop’s surrogates are automatically headed to the general election in a district they could conceivably win.
Assemblymembers Christian Barranco (R-Jefferson) and Aura Dunn (R-Mendham Borough) face no primary challengers, allowing them to save resources for the general election in November in a district that Donald Trump just barely won last year.
LD-26 (Morris, Passaic)
No competitive primaries in the 26th, either, where Assemblymen Brian Bergen (R-Denville) and Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) are seeking re-election – a nice change of pace for the district, which hosted primary slugfests in both 2021 and 2023. Michael Mancuso, a former candidate for Pequannock town council, and 2023 legislative candidate Walter Mielarczyk were the sole Democrats to file.
LD-27 (Essex, Passaic)
Democratic freshmen incumbents Rosy Bagolie (D-Livingston) and Alixon Collazos-Gill (D-Montclair) face a pair of primary challengers in this deep blue, mostly Essex County district that they first won in 2023 after one of the most unusual open-seat races New Jersey has ever witnessed. Business executive Rohit Dave will run under Fulop’s Democrats for Change slogan, and teacher Blake Michael will run an education-focused campaign; Roseland Mayor James Spango was going to run as well, but he dropped out before the Essex County Democratic convention.
Consultant Robert Iommazzo and former West Orange Board of Education candidate Adam Kraemer will seek the GOP nominations but stand little chance come November.
LD-28 (Essex, Union)
Assemblywoman Garnet Hall (D-Maplewood) has had a strange month. After failing to win the endorsement of the Essex County Democratic organization, the first-term assemblywoman initially said she wouldn’t run for re-election; then, she changed her mind and decided to run after all, but on Fulop’s Democrats for Change slate. (That involved renouncing party support in Union County, where she had already won the party slogan.)
Opposing her are the two party-backed choices: Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) and Chigozie Onyema, the co-chair of Newark’s West Ward Democratic Committee and a former city council candidate.
Onyema, the only candidate to initially win party endorsements in both Essex and Union Counties, could be a rising star in the 28th district. There was some speculation, meanwhile, that the 81-year-old Tucker could retire in light of low fundraising totals, but she decided to run again and earned the endorsement of Essex County Democrats; her close ties to Ras Baraka have helped, especially as his gubernatorial campaign has gained energy.
Four other candidates filed to run for the bluest district in the state, but all four were removed from the ballot in what turned out to be a petition bloodbath.
Community service worker Nadirah Brown, a Democrat, had her paltry 255 signatures challenged by the Essex County Democrats, and was ruled ineligible. The Republican side, meanwhile, became a case of mutually assured destruction: first-time candidate Toye Kumolu challenged the signatures of party-backed candidates Che Colter and Willie Jetti while the Assembly GOP campaign arm challenged Kumolu’s in return, leading to all three being booted off and leaving Republicans without anyone on the primary ballot.
LD-29 (Essex, Hudson)
Incumbent Assemblywomen Eliana Pintor Marin (D-Newark) and Shanique Speight (D-Newark) will cruise to re-election. They face no primary challenge, and Republicans Daniela Ferreira Almeida and Noble Milton will not pose a serious threat in this Newark-based district.
LD-30 (Monmouth, Ocean)
It’s one of the reddest districts in the state, but you can probably count on a Democrat to win in it again.
Assemblyman Avi Schnall (D-Lakewood) is running for re-election with the backing of Orthodox Jewish leadership. While their voters overwhelmingly opted for President Donald Trump, they also vote for candidates backed by leadership, including Schnall, who unseated Assemblyman Ned Thomson (R-Wall) in a landslide in 2023.
Schnall has a running mate, former Belmar Councilwoman Claire Deicke, though it’s not likely that he or his fellow Democrats will do much to get her elected.
Assemblyman Sean Kean (R-Wall) is reportedly in good standing with Lakewood leadership, setting him up well going into November. And Thomson is running again, though he and Kean are notably not bracketing together despite both running under the party slogan.
LD-31 (Hudson)
Welcome to Hudson County. The 31st district features one of several competitive Democratic primaries in the county, one that pits old allies against one another; Assemblymembers William Sampson (D-Bayonne) and Barbara McCann Stamato (D-Jersey City) are seeking re-election, but on different slates.
The Hudson County Democratic Organization is backing Sampson and Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker (D-Jersey City), fresh off a third-place finish in a 2024 congressional primary, under the party slogan. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, meanwhile, is supporting McCann Stamato and Bayonne Councilwoman Jackie Weimmer.
Jersey City just barely makes up a majority of the district’s votes, with Bayonne and Kearny making up the rest of the district. The war between the Hudson organization and the mayor of the district’s largest city will be unpredictable, and could be dependent on the success of Fulop’s gubernatorial campaign.
Two Republicans, realtor Anthony Acosta and 2021 state Senate candidate Neil Schulman, filed, though the true race is the June Democratic primary.
LD-32 (Hudson)
New Jersey’s hottest primary is the 32nd district. It has everything: three candidate slates, gubernatorial ramifications, an incumbent without party support, a mayor who spent millions last year to win a seat in Congress, and lots of intraparty strife.
Incumbent Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-Jersey City), first elected in 2023, is running on Fulop’s ticket alongside Jersey City Councilman Yousef Saleh.
Freshman Assemblyman John Allen (D-Hoboken) is stepping away from the Legislature to clear space for Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who ran against Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) in last year’s Democratic House primary. Bhalla has joined forces with Katie Brennan, a former Murphy administration official and housing expert who was previously best known for her 2018 rape accusation against a top Murphy campaign aide (and the legal battle that followed).
Finally, the Hudson Democratic Organization is backing Jennie Pu, the director of the Hoboken Public Library and a PTA president in Jersey City, and Crystal Fonseca, a manager at the Jersey City Department of Public Safety and a former Newark school board member.
Jersey City makes up about two-thirds of the 32nd district, and Hoboken comprises the rest. Bhalla is a known quantity in Hoboken and won more than 60% of the primary vote last year in the parts of the 8th congressional district that overlap with the 32nd legislative district; Fulop, too, is a force in the district, which includes his old home base of Downtown’s Ward E, and he could use the millions he’s pledged to spend on his Assembly slate in support of Ramirez and Saleh.
The Hudson Democratic organization is backing Mikie Sherrill, and the fight for votes in the gubernatorial primary will be just as fierce as the Assembly primary.
Two Republicans, Stephen Bishop and Kaushal Patel, filed with the GOP party slogan, but the Democratic nominees, whoever they may be, are expected to win handily.
LD-33 (Hudson)
War between State Sen./Union City Mayor Brian Stack and then-State Sen./North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco was narrowly avoided in 2023, when Sacco decided not to run for re-election after the two powerhouses were put in the same district during redistricting, but bad blood between the two has now created a nasty proxy war for the 33rd district’s Assembly seats.
Stack is backing Assemblyman Gabe Rodriguez (D-West New York) and dumped one-term Assemblyman Julio Marenco (D-North Bergen), a Sacco ally, in favor of Larry Wainstein, a Sacco antagonist who has run against the mayor in North Bergen repeatedly. Sacco, for his part, is supporting former North Bergen school board member Tony Hector and former Union City GOP chairman Frank Alonso, who only became a Democrat last month.
Hector and Alonso both filed under the Democrats for Change slogan, but Fulop notably does not list them on his Assembly candidate website.
Teacher Cynthia DePice and building inspector Anthony Valdes filed to run as Republicans; if Valdes’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the Republican House nominee last year against Rob Menendez.
LD-34 (Essex)
Assemblymembers Carmen Morales (D-Belleville) and Mike Venezia (D-Bloomfield), elected in 2023 as part of Essex County’s massive legislative delegation shuffle, face two Fulop challengers who have their own electoral track records in 34th district towns: former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks, who came in fifth place in a special congressional primary last year, and Belleville Councilman Frank Vélez.
Essex Republicans, continuing their streak of finding Republican candidates even in utterly inhospitable territory, are running BLEXIT leader Demetrius Eley and chiropractor Lorenzo Marchese.
LD-35 (Passaic, Bergen)
Nellie Pou’s ascension to Congress this January set off a game of musical chairs in the 35th district that will result in an entirely new legislative delegation by the beginning of next year.
Benjie Wimberly moved up to the Senate, now-Assemblyman Al Abdelaziz (D-Paterson) won his old Assembly seat after previously serving on the Paterson City Council, and Passaic County Commissioner Orlando Cruz (D-Paterson) is the Passaic Democratic organization’s choice to succeed Shavonda Sumter. Two other candidates are also running for the Assembly: Kenyatta Stewart, the Newark Corporation Counsel and an ally of Ras Baraka, and former Garfield Councilman Romi Herrera, running on Fulop’s slate.
It’s tough to tell who has the advantage among the four candidates, and the race may break down in part on racial lines; Cruz and Herrera (like a majority of 35th district residents) are Hispanic, Stewart is Black, and Abdelaziz is Palestinian American.
Republicans have a primary, too, though the GOP nomination in the 35th district is not much of a prize. Local party organizations are supporting Nelvin Mercado-Duran and Rawell Perez-Muñoz, but Elmwood Park realtor Andrew Tisellano is running on his own as well.
LD-36 (Bergen, Passaic)
South Bergen Republicans are energized by Donald Trump’s nearly five-point win in the 36th district last year, and they’ve recruited Carlstadt Councilwoman Diane DeBiase and former Lyndhurst school board member Chris Musto to run for the seat. But the pair of party-backed candidates will have to get through a primary against two familiar names: Chris and Craig Auriemma, twins who were the Republican nominees for the same district in both 2021 and 2023 and are now running under the banner of “Combat Veterans Fighting for You.”
And despite Trump’s win in the district, incumbent Democratic Assemblymen Clinton Calabrese (D-Cliffside Park) and Gary Schaer (D-Passaic City) won in a landslide in 2023 and will be extremely tough to beat.
LD-37 (Bergen)
Few primaries anywhere in the state are as hard to handicap as the 37th district, featuring three full slates of Democratic candidates with their own advantages.
The incumbents are Assemblywomen Shama Haider (D-Tenafly) and Ellen Park (D-Englewood Cliffs), who have the support of the Bergen Democratic organization. Fulop is running one of his strongest slates anywhere in the state in the 37th district, featuring Tamar Warburg, a Jewish community leader from Teaneck, and Tenafly Councilman Dan Park (no relation to the assemblywoman). And then there’s the wild card slate of former Teaneck Councilman Yitz Stern and small business owner Rosemary Hernandez Carroll, who could be serious contenders as well (or could perhaps play spoiler even if they aren’t) after withstanding a petition challenge.
Republicans are running Andrew Meehan, an independent candidate for county commissioner last year, and EMT Marco Navarro in what is Bergen County’s bluest district by far.
LD-38 (Bergen)
Assemblymembers Lisa Swain (D-Fair Lawn) and Chris Tully (D-Bergenfield), who convincingly won a tough re-election fight in 2023, are facing opponents from both parties in this cycle’s race for the 38th district, which shockingly voted for Donald Trump by 65 votes last year.
On the Democratic side, Swain and Tully will have to beat back Fulop running mates Donald Bonomo, an attorney, and Damali Robinson, the president of the Glen Rock Board of Education. If they win, they then may have to face Republicans Barry Wilkes, who ran against them in 2023, and Robert Kaiser, a Paramus councilman. Also running for the Republican nomination is Jerry Taylor, though it remains to be seen whether he’ll run a campaign capable of beating the organization slate of Wilkes and Kaiser.
LD-39 (Bergen)
This year’s 39th district GOP primary has undergone a number of permutations in the last few months, but it’s settled into a fairly straightforward race: Assemblymen Bob Auth (R-Old Tappan) and John Azzariti (R-Saddle River) are running as a team against a single challenger, former congressional candidate Frank Pallotta. Auth and Azzariti have party support, but Pallotta has something that may be better: name recognition and goodwill among Republican voters from his two underdog attempts to defeat Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly).
39th district Democrats, too, have a contested primary for a district that could be competitive if things go right for the party in November. The Bergen Democratic organization is running former Woodcliff Lake Councilwoman Donna Abene and former Dumont Councilman Damon Englese, both of whom have run for the 39th district before; Fulop’s Democrats for Change slate, meanwhile, includes former Dumont Mayor Andrew LaBruno and Demarest Councilman David Jiang.
LD-40 (Passaic, Essex, Bergen)
To face Assemblymen Al Barlas (R-Cedar Grove) and Christopher DePhillips (R-Wyckoff) in the Republican-leaning – but not overwhelmingly so – 40th district, Fulop announced former Woodland Park Councilman Ron Arnau as his running mate months ago.
But Fulop never recruited a second candidate for the district, and the local Democratic organizations didn’t have a clear contender either – until Caldwell Council President Jeff Gates entered the race at the last minute, saying that he heard Democrats needed another candidate. Gates and Arnau, despite coming from different wings of the party, will now have to team up for a fight against Barlas and DePhillips, who are unopposed in their own primary.
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