Sherrill campaign goes on offense against Fulop’s ‘long history of corruption’

As the leader in every poll of New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial primary released thus far, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) has been the target of a growing number of attacks from her primary opponents. Today, Sherrill hit back at one of her opponents in particular: Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.

In an email titled “Steven Fulop’s Terrible Two Weeks” sent this afternoon, the Sherrill campaign listed a number of different recent news stories on Fulop’s campaign and his three terms as mayor of New Jersey’s second-largest city, arguing that Fulop is a two-faced politician “on nobody’s side but his own.”

“Poor Steven Fulop,” Sherrill spokesperson Sean Higgins said. “For more than two years, he’s run a campaign desperately trying to rebrand himself as a reformer, spending millions and barely making headway. Now, it’s all starting to unravel and his long history of corruption is catching up with him.”

One story cited in the email, published in the Jersey City Times, details the $6.8 million Fulop’s campaigns have received over the years from real estate and development interests; another Jersey City Times piece questions whether voter fraud affected Fulop’s first City Council victory in 2005; an article in the New Jersey Monitor focuses on the Fulop administration’s frequent unwillingness to release public records; an op-ed on WPG Talk Radio criticizes Fulop for aligning with Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small despite Small’s criminal indictment; and a story in the Jersey Vindicator notes that Jersey City officials did not allow press to take photos or videos at a recent Israeli flag-raising ceremony.

“During these last two weeks, Jersey voters are getting a peek behind the curtain at the real Steven Fulop – a model of the very corruption and secrecy he insists he’s against,” Higgins said. “From his pay-to-play operation that is fueling his dark money super PAC and selling out Jersey City to the highest bidder, to stonewalling Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests to city hall, Steven’s on nobody’s side but his own – and his special interest donors.”

Fulop, though, dismissed the evidence the Sherrill campaign had assembled as “old news,” saying that the fact the congresswoman was going negative at all means that she’s worried about her chances against him.

“With 5 other people running for governor, the fact that she is going negative on me just means Sherrill and the NJ political machine are scared of our momentum. They know they can no longer hide behind the political line,” Fulop told the New Jersey Globe. “Everything Sherrill tried to suggest today about me is old news that Jersey City residents rejected 3 elections in a row.”

It is indeed notable that Sherrill chose to attack Fulop, given that it has not been clear whether he or one of the four other Democrats running for governor poses the greatest threat to Sherrill’s small polling lead. All public polls have found Sherrill in front, but have disagreed on which of her opponents is in second place; the lone recent independent poll, from Rutgers-Eagleton, put Fulop as the runner-up with 12%, behind Sherrill’s 17%.

Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) have all attacked Sherrill in recent weeks and months in an effort to dislodge her from that lead, although none of them have put any campaign money behind their attacks yet. Today marks the first time that Sherrill has aggressively responded in kind.

It’s not the first time, though, that Sherrill and Fulop have tussled. The two candidates have similar backgrounds in some ways – both are military veterans who pitch themselves as reformers – but Fulop has chosen to explicitly reject the establishment party support that’s usually critical to New Jersey campaigns (prompting some claims of hypocrisy from those who remember his formerly close ties with the Hudson County Democratic organization), while Sherrill is the beneficiary of the lion’s share of that support.

Last week, Fulop laid out his case against Sherrill, arguing that her record had never faced real scrutiny and that she’d face difficult headwinds in a general election; Sherrill’s campaign manager, Alex Ball, hit back and said that the congresswoman was living “rent-free” in Fulop’s head. Today, Fulop reiterated many of those same arguments against Sherrill.

“The truth is that whether it is Sherrill insider trading, or her misrepresenting her military service, or her exaggerating her time as a prosecutor, there are major issues that Republicans will exploit,” he said. “My concern is that while she has had a free ride in her previous campaigns, [Republican candidate Jack] Ciattarelli will exploit her as an extremely weak general election candidate during the Trump era… Sherrill has never been vetted and that is becoming more clear and it is dangerous that we can lose in November if she is the nominee.”