Is Ras Baraka a GOTV paper tiger?

Part of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s pitch to Democratic insiders is that he can win a statewide gubernatorial election in 2025 is that he’s the popular mayor of the state’s largest city with the largest number of registered Democrats – over 91,300.

But recent elections show that Baraka may just be a paper tiger.

In a contested race for State Assembly in the 28th district, where a close Baraka ally, Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) faced a primary challenge, just 7.6% of Democrats showed up to vote, including vote-by-mail and three days of early voting.

Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said Baraka needs to address the perception that he can’t turn out votes.

“If Ras Baraka does decide to run for governor in 2025, he will need every vote can get out of Newark, and what’s more, he will need to demonstrate that he can get every vote out of Newark,” Rasmussen said.  “The best thing he could do to build credibility in his candidacy would be to build a robust GOTV operation— hire the best in the business and invest real time, money and effort in it.”

According to Rasmussen, the 2023 general election, and school board, primary and general elections in 2024, gives Baraka an opportunity to “turn a perceived liability into a highly visible asset.”

“And that has the added benefit of being what would be good for New Jersey Democrats as well,” he said.

The 28th includes the South and West Wards of Newark, which are part of Baraka’s political base.

Newark’s lifeless turnout may have pushed Tucker into second place.  Her running mate, Deputy Essex County Clerk Garnet Hall, is running about 210 votes ahead of her.   Former Maplewood Mayor Frank McGehee, who mounted an off-the-line campaign, trailed Tucker by 4,040 votes.

Newark’s 7.6% turnout trails the other municipalities in the 28th: Maplewood (15.2%), Hillside (14.2%), South Orange (12.4%), and Irvington (9.1%).

Newark makes up 36% of the registered Democrats in the 28th legislative district but supplied 30% of the votes cast in the primary.

McGehee beat Tucker in Maplewood and South Orange, but he got crushed in Newark, and in Hillside, where he received just 128 votes compared to Tucker’s 7,468.

Newark’s turnout numbers have been similarly low in recent years.

While the mayor’s preferred slate easily won a contested race for the Newark school board in April, a mere 3% of voters showed up.

In the 2022 general election, three geographically suburban towns in southern Essex County – Maplewood, Millburn, and South Orange – produced about as many votes as Newark, the state’s largest city, even though Newark is about three times the size of the three towns combined.

While Baraka won re-election to a third term in May 2022 with a massive 83% of the vote, a paltry 9.8% voter turnout citywide means that 92% of all registered voters in Newark did not vote for him.   In that election, Newark — specifically, Baraka — rejected the option of early in-person voting.

Turnout in June 2022 runoff for three Newark ward city council seats was 9.4%; in the April 2022 Newark school board elections, turnout was also stuck at 3%.