When the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) endorsed Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) in this year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, it was something of a risky bet, since Sherrill was going up against the county’s most prominent politician, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. The bet paid off; Sherrill defeated Fulop 34%-29% in Hudson County en route to a convincing statewide win.
But because Sherrill’s support was so heavily concentrated in the majority-Hispanic North Hudson fiefdom controlled by Union City Mayor/State Sen. Brian Stack, her win came with an interesting asterisk: she, and by extension the HCDO, only won two out of nine districts on Hudson’s county commissioner map. Fulop won six, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka won one.
With every seat on the board of commissioners up next year, that could spell trouble for the HCDO’s stranglehold on county government – especially since two of their incumbent commissioners already came close to losing renomination the last time they faced Democratic primary voters in 2023.
The two districts that voted for Sherrill both did so in landslides: Commissioner Fanny Cedeño (D-Union City)’s 6th district supported her by 54 percentage points, and Commissioner Caridad Rodriguez (D-West New York)’s 7th district did so by 37 points. Both districts are essentially controlled by Stack, who runs New Jersey’s most formidable voter turnout operation in tandem with West New York Mayor Albio Sires.
But Fulop, once an ally of the HCDO who split with them during his gubernatorial campaign, won almost everywhere else. He won Commissioner Kenneth Kopacz (D-Bayonne)’s 1st district by seven points, Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-Jersey City)’s 2nd district by nine points, Commissioner Yraida Aponte-Lipski (D-Jersey City)’s 4th district by 14 points, Commissioner Stick Romano (D-Hoboken)’s 5th district by two points, and Commissioner Robert Baselice (D-North Bergen)’s 8th district and Commissioner Albert Cifelli (D-Kearny)’s 9th district by less than one percentage point each.
Fulop’s wins in the 2nd, 4th, and 5th districts were assisted by the gerrymandered county commissioner map, which splits fast-growing downtown Jersey City (Fulop’s longtime base) into four districts in order to dilute its progressive voting bloc. The map successfully blocked anti-machine candidates from winning any seats in 2023, but the 4th and 5th districts were both close; Aponte-Lipski won by 148 votes, 52% to 48%, and Romano won by 235 votes, 53% to 46%. As this year’s primary results show, it wouldn’t take much for the map to backfire on the HCDO.
Finally, Commissioner Jerry Walker (D-Jersey City)’s 3rd district went for Baraka by 24 points; the district is home to many of Jersey City’s Black voters, who were Baraka’s strongest supporters in Hudson County and around the state.
The HCDO did a bit better in the race for county sheriff between party-backed Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis and Fulop-aligned incumbent Frank Schillari, but it still lost a majority of districts. Schillari, who is from Secaucus and is closely allied with North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco, won the 8th and 9th districts, and he also convincingly carried the 2nd, 4th, and 5th districts in Jersey City and Hoboken despite losing countywide 53% to 46%. (Davis won the same Stack-aligned districts as Sherrill, plus the 1st district in his hometown of Bayonne and the 3rd district in Jersey City’s Black neighborhoods.)
For now, both the HCDO and its enemies are focused primarily on this November’s elections for governor and for local office in Jersey City and Hoboken. Both cities will host nonpartisan mayoral races featuring a host of serious candidates, and all nine seats on the Jersey City Council and three at-large council seats in Hoboken will also be on voters’ ballots.
(For what it’s worth, Fulop won Jersey City Wards B, C, D, and E, while Baraka won Wards A and F; Sherrill came in third place in every ward. Sherrill narrowly won the city of Hoboken, with Fulop in second.)
After November, though, the HCDO will have to pivot fairly quickly to defending its county commissioner seats, and local progressives – energized after winning two State Assembly seats this year in downtown Jersey City and Hoboken – will undoubtedly make another attempt at flipping some districts.
Given the gubernatorial primary results, they’ve got a good chance at doing so. That’s especially true now that the county line is gone; the HCDO could previously count on primary ballots to guide voters towards their endorsed candidates (“vote for Column B” was their slogan in 2023), but now every candidate will appear on the ballot as equals, a change that clearly helped Katie Brennan and Ravi Bhalla win the Democratic nomination for the 32nd Assembly district this year.
The 4th and 5th districts, the two districts that nearly flipped in 2023, are the most obvious targets. And in the 5th district, the HCDO may have to deal with an open seat, since Romano is the leading candidate to join the sheriff’s department and thus would depart from the commissioner board.
The 3rd district, too, is near-certain to be open, since Walker won a primary for a deep-blue State Assembly seat this year and is set to be elected in November. County committeemembers will meet after Walker resigns to choose a replacement, and that new commissioner will then have to run for a full term just a few months later; Walker, who has ambitions of running for State Senate in two years, will likely try to influence that process.
And the 2nd district remains in limbo for now in the midst of O’Dea’s campaign for Jersey City mayor; if O’Dea were to win, that would create yet another open seat.
It’s important to note, though, that Hudson County political factions are far more complicated than simply machine-versus-rebels. Though he ran for governor as a crusading reformer, Fulop spent many years as an ally of the HCDO and supported their county commissioner slates; in 2023, the strongest supporter of the renegade ticket was instead Jersey City Councilman James Solomon, a sometime Fulop foe who’s now running for mayor.
And while Black voters in Jersey City’s Wards A and F may have opted for Baraka, they also supported other HCDO-backed candidates like Walker for Assembly and Davis for sheriff. The HCDO’s failure to win those areas in the governor’s primary may not mean the organization is in any real danger there long-term, and instead had more to do with Baraka’s uniquely compelling candidacy.
What may matter more than anything else won’t be known until November: who will hold the mayor’s offices in Hoboken, Jersey City, and Bayonne, which will have to choose a new mayor after Davis is elected sheriff. If Solomon is elected Jersey City mayor in defiance of the HCDO, for example, that would create a very different environment in 2026 than if HCDO-endorsed former Gov. Jim McGreevey wins.
This story was updated at 10:55 a.m. on August 28 with a correction: Schillari is from Secaucus, not Bayonne.
RELATED ARTICLES
-
-
December 22, 2018 -
October 17, 2018