As Baraka mulls bid for governor, poll says Newarkers feel less safe than before the pandemic

Newark residents feel less safe than they did before the pandemic and offer mixed reviews of whether the state’s largest city has gotten better or worse over the last few years, views that could result in diminished enthusiasm for Ras Baraka if the three-term mayor decides to seek the Democratic nomination for mayor in 2025, a new Fairleigh Dickinson University poll shows.

While 68% of Newarkers feel safe in their neighborhoods during the day, but comfort levels at night drop to 42%, with more than half of the city’s residents (53%) saying they don’t feel safe at night.  In 2018, 45% said they felt unsafe in Newark at night.

One-third of residents (33%) say Newark has become a better place to live, 26% say it’s become worse, and 35% don’t think there’s been much of a change.  Five years ago, an FDU poll had those numbers at 43%-19%.

“The progress that has been made in Newark is uneven,” said FDU poll director Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics. “For some people, in some wards, things have gotten better, but they’re the exception rather than the rule.”

Nearly six-in-ten Newark residents (59%) have a less than favorable view of the local police department, while 34% view local law enforcement as excellent or good.  Ominously, 56% of people in the city think the Newark Police Department is corrupt.

These numbers could spell trouble for Baraka if he moves forward on a gubernatorial run.

“Mayor Baraka has been pushing a narrative of rebirth in Newark, that things have gotten a lot better in his tenure.  By a lot of objective measures, that’s true: but he hasn’t sold most people in Newark on it,” said Cassino.  “Maybe residents have higher expectations than in the past, maybe they’re not seeing the progress, but they don’t think things have gotten better.”

Views of whether Newark has become better or worse fluctuate based on the city’s neighborhoods, where 35% of people who live in the South and West Wards and 34% in the Central Ward say things have gotten better; that number goes down to 32% in the North Ward and 30% in the East Ward.

“The ward-by-ward variation in Newark represents a problem for Baraka politically. He’s had trouble holding together a coalition on the city council, and he needs to be making progress, and have residents see that progress throughout the city,” Cassino stated.  “Newark is a diverse city, and the promise has always been that a rising tide will lift all ships.  But if some ships are rising faster, or not rising at all, the others are going to get restless.”

The Fairleigh Dickinson poll had a sample size of 1,104 and a margin of error of +/- 3%; the margin of error at the ward level is 3.7%.