Jersey City Councilman Yousef Saleh is expected to run for State Assembly in the crowded Democratic field on a slate headed by gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop.
Saleh, who would have been the front runner to keep his council seat, will run with freshman Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-Jersey City), the New Jersey Globe has learned. He had rejected offers to run with Fulop and Ramirez twice in recent weeks, but reconsidered.
The decision came after three major mayoral candidates went in a different direction after Saleh was unwilling to accept the terms of an offer to be on their ticket in the November 2023 non-partisan municipal election.
He’ll face four other Democrats: Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla; Katie Brennan, a former New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency chief of staff; Jenny Pu, the director of the Hoboken Public Library and a PTA president and community activist in Jersey City, and Crystal Fonseca, a manager at the Jersey City Department of Public Safety and a former Newark school board member. Pu and Fonseca are running with the support of the Hudson County Democratic organization.
Saleh’s entry into the 32nd district race could open the door to Bhalla and Brennan teaming up; right now, each is running a separate campaign.
An attorney and the son of Palestinian immigrants, Saleh found himself without a home after James E. McGreevey, James Solomon, and Bill O’Dea each recruited other candidates to run for the Ward D council seat. It’s also not clear he wanted to run with a mayoral candidate, and the conventional wisdom is that he would have been a clear favorite to win re-election as an independent; that’s the route Solomon took.
He was appointed to the city council in April 2020 after Michael Yun died of COVID-19. He later won a November special election and was re-elected in 2021 on a slate with Fulop, who won his third term as mayor.
The district includes Hoboken and part of Jersey City.
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