From the very beginning of this election cycle, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) had made it clear that it was all-in to elect Sean Spiller, the union’s president and the former mayor of Montclair, as New Jersey’s next governor. The union was so committed to that goal, in fact, that it spent upwards of $45 million to elect him, one of the largest investments any single group has ever made in a New Jersey campaign.
But things didn’t turn out the way the NJEA hoped. Spiller currently sits in fifth place out of six candidates, winning 11% of the vote and finishing well behind Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), now the Democratic nominee.
That means that for every vote Spiller received, the NJEA’s affiliated PAC spent more than $500 – $533, to be exact, with much of the money flowing from the dues that teachers pay into the union.
That’s a calculation based on Spiller’s current 84,500-vote total, a total that will grow somewhat in the coming days as more votes are counted, and on an NJEA investment of $45 million, which might be an underestimate. 11-day pre-election reports showed that the NJEA had given $40 million to the pro-Spiller super PAC Working New Jersey (through the NJEA’s own PAC, Garden State Forward), and the union had previously seeded a different pro-Spiller group with $5 million.
The money went towards a variety of different campaign purposes: widespread TV ads, ubiquitous mailers, and, per Politico’s Matt Friedman, $8.3 million on canvassing, a truly mammoth sum for a field operation.
Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, invoked the specter of the NJEA’s $5 million investment in an unsuccessful effort to unseat then-State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) in 2017 and said “you’ve got to scratch your head” at what the union accomplished with its heavy support for Spiller.
“I wouldn’t say the NJEA is down or out – clearly, it will be in Mikie Sherrill’s interest to pursue their support for the fall,” Rasmussen said. “But that would have been the case without the $40 million. So it’s just really tough to see what they’ve got to show for draining their political accounts, and it would not surprise me if rank and file teachers started demanding answers.”
In a pair of gubernatorial primaries that cost more than $120 million total, Spiller was far from the only candidate who had to spend a lot of money to get votes.
Fourth-place finisher Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), for example, funneled more than $10 million from his congressional campaign into a super PAC and ended up spending at least $210 per vote. Third-place finisher Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and his affiliated PACs spent at least $129 per vote, and State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), who came in third on the GOP side, spent at least $160 per vote.
Those numbers are based on New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) reports covering the period up to May 27, so they’re likely to grow even further after the spending that took place in the campaign’s final two weeks gets reported.
(Sherrill’s victorious campaign and her affiliated PACs spent at least $46 per vote, while Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli and his PACs spent at least $30 per vote. Those are both far lower costs per vote, and they had more obvious dividends – namely, they’re now their parties’ nominees for governor.)
Reached for comment for this story, NJEA spokesperson Steven Baker referred the New Jersey Globe to a statement on the race put out last night by NJEA Vice President Steve Beatty and NJEA Secretary-Treasurer Petal Robertson.
“We are incredibly proud of the campaign Sean ran over the last year, and we are even more proud of the effort that our fellow NJEA members put into it,” said Beatty and Robertson, who are both set to lead the union themselves in the coming years. “While we did not get the outcome we wanted, together we showed New Jersey that we refuse to be forgotten or taken for granted. This was an unprecedented grassroots effort powered by thousands of member volunteers. There will be no return to politics as usual for those of us who saw the power of our membership in action over the last year.”
The NJEA had previously defended its investment by saying it was the only way to rise above the “billionaires and power brokers,” echoing an argument Spiller made over and over again during the campaign: his union backing meant that he, unlike any other candidates running, was powered by working people. They got donations from big corporate interests, developers, and the wealthy; he, on the other hand, was funded by the state’s teachers.
But those teachers weren’t always willing participants in Spiller’s campaign. The NJEA’s 125-member operating committee held a vote to endorse Spiller last year, but teachers themselves didn’t have much say in the union’s financial decisions, and many began publicly grumbling about the use of their money to support Spiller in recent months.
“The bottom line is that Tuesday’s results underscore what a scandal this is,” said Mike Lilley, the founder of the Sunlight Policy Center, which has spent years lambasting Spiller’s leadership role at the NJEA.
Spiller’s super-PAC-focused campaign also hindered his efforts to stay relevant in the final weeks of the race thanks to the ELEC’s rules regarding primary debates. In order to qualify for matching funds and make the stage for the primary’s two final debates, Spiller had to raise a minimum of $580,000 for his own campaign; since his campaign was essentially outsourced to his super PAC, he missed that threshold, and the debates proceeded without him.
Then again, it is clear that Spiller’s efforts did reach plenty of voters, especially in South Jersey. Working around local party leaders and simply going directly to voters with mailers and TV ads, Spiller won Cumberland County 26% to 24% over former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) and is in second or third place in every other South Jersey county.
But Spiller never found a clear home base anywhere, which made building a statewide coalition impossible. His hometown of Montclair provided no respite; after spending twelve years in local office there, first as a councilman and then as mayor, Spiller left under a cloud of controversy in 2024, and he ended up with just 2.5% of the vote and a fifth-place finish in Montclair last night.