New Jersey 2026 Special Edition
It is as it says: I decided to do a special New Jersey-only edition because some of you generously gave me money when I asked. (Thanks for that.)
Let's start with some housekeeping.
First, I’m not covering the House primaries in the 10th and 11th districts because Reps. LaMonica McIver and Analilia Mejia will assuredly win decisively, potentially clearing 90%. I am also not covering Bergen County, because there are simply too many tiny municipalities to contend with up there, and I skipped some smaller towns here and there. Other than that, I did aim to be fairly comprehensive in the towns and counties I covered—feel free to send this around as a voter guide if you or anyone you know is a registered Democrat in any of these congressional districts, counties, or towns in New Jersey.
Second, New Jersey has four main forms of municipality: towns, townships, boroughs, and cities. I will not bore you with the differences; think of them all as city councils. I’m going to be covering all municipal council primaries on a municipality-wide basis.
Third, If I refer to “slogans,” I mean ballot slogans, a New Jersey-only ballot design quirk that allows candidates to include a slogan under their name on the ballot; candidates backed by the party machine traditionally use a slogan such as “___ County Democratic Organization Endorsed” or “___ County Democratic Committee,” while other candidates express varying degrees of creativity that I mostly think don’t matter.
Finally, I will be tracking most of these results—though not NJ-02 or NJ-06—in this spreadsheet as votes are counted.
Congress
NJ-02 (South Jersey, minus the Philadelphia suburbs)
Tim Alexander vs. Zack Mullock vs. Terri Reese vs. Bayly Winder
The right to face Jeff Van Drew isn’t worth much in most years. The post-2020 redistricting made Van Drew’s already-reddish district even redder, and Democrats have lost to him by double digits both cycles on the new map. But this is not most years–this is the kind of year where even a Trump+13 district like NJ-02 could be on the table–and so the primary to take on Van Drew is fiercely contested, with four different Democrats vying for the chance to ride what they hope will be a Democratic wave large enough to overcome this district’s stubborn and increasing Republican partisanship.
First, there’s broke, scrappy outsider Terri Reese. Reese has very little in the way of organizational support or money, but she’s the only candidate running to the left; everyone else is a moderate distinguished mainly by who’s supporting them and the style of campaign they’re running. Next, there’s perennial candidate Tim Alexander; Alexander, a cop turned civil rights lawyer, was the losing Democratic nominee in 2022 and lost the primary for this seat in 2024. Somewhat inexplicably, segments of the local Democratic establishment want him back, even though he’s a poor fundraiser and now a two-time loser; however, other, smarter segments of the local Democratic establishment, perhaps sensing that Alexander might not be their best bet against a strong outsider, recruited Cape May (pop. 2,800) Mayor Zack Mullock, who launched with a slate of endorsements that telegraphed he was the real choice of the powerful but weakening South Jersey machine. The South Jersey machine, headed by legendary boss George Norcross III, may be based in Camden County, outside the 2nd District, but has its tentacles all over South Jersey. Finally, there’s Bayly Winder, a fresh-faced, well-funded young outsider with a Washington resume and tenuous roots in the district that have proven a major obstacle to getting the local establishment to take him seriously. In a more normal state or a more winnable district, Winder might be a prototypical DCCC recruit; here, he’s sort of an outsider, despite not being progressive at all, because he hasn’t deferred to local party leaders and the intensely hierarchical South Jersey machine. It’s not clear who has the upper hand between Mullock and Winder, both of whom have the money to compete.
NJ-06 (Middlesex County to the northern Jersey Shore)
Frank Pallone (i) vs. John Hsu
John Hsu has run against longtime Rep. Frank Pallone before, and lost quite badly. However, in the two short years since Hsu lost 84-16 to Pallone in 2024, the national and local political environments have undergone drastic upheaval. Muslim political groups such as CAIR-NJ are backing Hsu, which will matter to some degree thanks to this district’s significant Muslim population, particularly in northern Middlesex County; so is the Piscataway Progressive Democratic Organization, the well-organized progressive club that is concurrently aiming to take control of the Piscataway township council. Hsu has also unofficially partnered with the progressive challenger slate in New Brunswick. Pallone, while old and long-tenured, is also a very active presence in his district who takes constituent services seriously; consequently, Hsu will almost certainly lose by a lot. However, his margin and the geographic distribution of his support will be instructive for downballot primaries in 2027 and beyond.
NJ-07 (New York City suburbs and exurbs, rural northern New Jersey)
Rebecca Bennett vs. Michael Roth vs. Tina Shah vs. Brian Varela
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. was already one of House Republicans’ most vulnerable members before he went missing in early March due to an undisclosed medical issue. Now that it feels as if he’s almost certain to lose, the primary is more or less for the right to be the one who officially retires him. With that in mind, the race has been strangely low-key—speaking as a voter in the bluest corner of the district myself. My mailbox has been flooded, but the race has largely evaded media attention, with the exception of one PAC’s attack on frontrunner Rebecca Bennett. Let’s meet Bennett, shall we?
Mikie Sherrill is a formerly apolitical Navy helicopter pilot spurred to run for office by Donald Trump’s lawless administra—wait, hold on, how’d that get in here?
I’m not the first to note Bennett’s biographical similarities to Sherrill—formerly the representative who flipped the neighboring 11th district in 2018, now the state’s governor as of January—and I won’t be the last. Like Sherrill, Bennett is a Navy helicopter pilot turned relatively apolitical suburban mom; unlike Sherrill, Bennett was once a Republican before Trump, a fact she does not shy away from on the campaign trail. She’s the clear leader in polling and fundraising, and also the clear favorite of the Democratic establishment, though progressive opponent Brian Varela was able to snag the county party endorsement in a pair of rural northwestern counties that hold more open endorsement conventions.
With all that said, you—and I—would expect her to be the most conservative candidate with a shot, but that distinction belongs to Dr. Tina Shah, an ICU doctor whose main message seems to be that she is an ICU doctor; Shah, and Shah alone, has said she is categorically unwilling to place restrictions on aid to Israel, and her policy platform is otherwise bland and vague. That makes her attacks on Bennett all the more bewildering—Shah is attacking Bennett from the left for her Republican past and her supposed softness on ICE, and a PAC with obvious connections to national Republicans is echoing her attacks almost word for word. To say Shah’s attacks have angered local Democratic leaders and activists, even those not supporting Bennett, would be an understatement.
Varela, a millennial businessman and the son of Colombian immigrants, leads the pack in terms of progressive endorsements, counting Make the Road, 32BJ SEIU, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka among his supporters, but he’s not the only progressive in the race. Former Biden Small Business Administration official Michael Roth is also running in the left lane and has grassroots support from the district’s various Indivisible chapters, which issued a joint endorsement of his candidacy. Roth has also slated up with progressive Rahway City Council candidate Andrew Garcia Phillips and committed himself to quite a lot of door-knocking. It seems quite likely that Bennett wins with less than a majority, but by a comfortable margin nonetheless.
NJ-08 (Jersey City, Newark, Elizabeth, Bayonne, and northern Hudson County)
Rob Menendez (i) vs. Mussab Ali
The son of convicted former Sen. Bob Menendez should be vulnerable to a challenge. Maybe 2024 wasn’t the year, or then-Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla wasn’t the candidate, but Rep. Rob Menendez’s entire career is owed to who his father is. Unfortunately for his detractors, the younger Menendez is also a dogged and relatively progressive representative who knows his majority-Latino district well, and progressives have been unable to find a strong Latino candidate to challenge him—which is why Hudson County progressives were generally planning on sitting out the congressional race in 2026. Enter former Jersey City School Board member Mussab Ali.
Ali, a bombastic and social media-forward personality, has a base of support among traditionally disengaged young voters as well as Jersey City’s large Pakistani community, which propelled him to a respectable fourth-place finish in last year’s mayoral election; he also has undeniable charisma in small doses. However, he is universally distrusted by his fellow Hudson County progressives, and his in-your-face, self-aggrandizing persona gets downright grating very quickly, which is why the politicians and organizations who backed Bhalla’s challenge in 2024 are either sitting this one out or backing Menendez. While he lacks local endorsers, Ali counts among his supporters a smattering of national progressive figures and organizations (though most of the big ones, like Justice Democrats, AOC, and Bernie Sanders, have conspicuously avoided this race), and he has enough money for the nuts and bolts of a professional campaign as well as an extremely slick social media video operation. However, he’s still quite likely to lose just as Bhalla did. Menendez has additionally shored himself up by being a constant presence at ICE’s Delaney Hall facility, earning the grudging respect of many who were predisposed to hate his guts with his dedicated and continuing oversight of the facility. And, to round things out, Silicon Valley is spending handsomely to defend him even though he does not appear to be in any real trouble.
NJ-12 (Trenton, Princeton, Plainfield, southern Middlesex County)
Matt Adams vs. Sue Altman vs. Brad Cohen vs. Adam Hamawy vs. Kyle Little vs. Adrian Mapp vs. Verlina Reynolds-Jackson vs. Shanel Robinson vs. Squire Servance vs. Sujit Singh vs. Jay Vaingankar vs. Sam Wang (vs. Elijah Dixon)
This safely Democratic seat is already held by a progressive stalwart—popular outgoing Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman has perhaps the leftmost voting record of anyone not in the Squad, and she consistently aligns herself with House progressives on fights big and small. That’s part of what makes it so disorienting that someone to her left appears to be in pole position, without much in the way of a coordinated campaign to stop him.
Dr. Adam Hamawy is, by all appearances, the clear frontrunner to succeed Watson Coleman. A plastic surgeon in the Princeton area, Hamawy is also a decorated U.S. Army combat surgeon, most notably being the surgeon who saved future Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s life when her helicopter was shot down over Iraq; he has also used his medical training in combat and disaster zones across the globe, from Bosnia during the genocide, to Haiti after the earthquake, to New York after 9/11, to Syria during its civil war, to Gaza during Israel’s genocidal bombardment. That last trip earned him national repute when he was trapped in Gaza by Israeli bombardment, which led a number of prominent politicians to call for US intervention to save Dr. Hamawy and his team—and also led Rep. Watson Coleman to invite Dr. Hamawy as her guest to the 2024 State of the Union. That personal connection, combined with Watson Coleman’s progressive politics, have made Hamawy one of five candidates Watson Coleman has given her seal of approval to. But Hamawy doesn’t just have a cozy relationship with the popular incumbent—he also has heavy financial support from pro-Palestinian PACs such as American Priorities and Justice Democrats, which have invested more than $2 million in total to promote Hamawy. He also has a considerable fundraising lead versus the field, and the support of Muslim political groups in one of New Jersey’s most Muslim congressional districts. And did I mention all the national endorsements like Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC? Add to that a badly split field of establishment opponents—all four county party organizations in the district are backing different candidates—and you have a recipe for an easy plurality win for Hamawy.
It’s not hard to see why national progressives like Hamawy. In addition to the restrictions on aid to Israel you might expect to see supported by someone Israel nearly killed, Hamawy supports progressive standards like Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, and a Green New Deal, and has leaned into his support of abolishing ICE and dismantling the Department of Homeland Security by showing up to support protesters and hunger-striking detainees at ICE’s Delaney Hall torture camp in Newark.
What’s more interesting is why so many of them are ignoring former New Jersey Working Families Party head Sue Altman, who is running on a largely identical policy platform minus the Israel skepticism. There’s the obvious problems—that not only did Altman run for her home district, the neighboring NJ-07, in 2024; but that she tacked to the right in that campaign. Then there’s the subtler issue that you might not notice unless you’re paying close attention: Altman was the first of several candidates to attempt to smear Hamawy as an antisemite, telling Jewish Insider that his opposition to US funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system was tantamount to “cheerleading [...] the deaths of Israeli children.”
Wow, that’s a fucking insane quote. Anyway!
The backlash to Altman’s comments was so severe that Altman actually apologized to Hamawy personally, but the damage was done: no progressive group with any heft in New Jersey other than her old friends at WFP was interested in her campaign any longer, and WFP’s endorsement became a paper endorsement backed by no spending.
Undeterred by watching the race’s other frontrunner crash headfirst into a wall by attempting this strategy, Hamawy’s other opponents began latching on to similar lines of attack. East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen began circulating a story connecting Hamawy to the Blind Sheikh and by extension the 1993 WTC bombing; Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp came right out and called Hamawy an antisemite in a lengthy op-ed; both men as well as Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson tried to tie Hamawy’s work in Bosnia (for an organization that was at the time praised by then-President Bill Clinton) to al Qaeda based on the organization’s actions years after Hamawy left Bosnia. (It doesn’t appear to be working; the only poll we have, a Hamawy internal, has the doctor leading 19-12 with the field of opponents badly split.)
With just days left before the primary and Hamawy looking near-unbeatable, Project 218, a PAC with ties to the establishment Democratic shop American Bridge, began a late burst of spending to boost Altman in the final week of the race. The problem for Hamawy’s opponents is that Altman, as you might have gathered by now, is hardly his only serious opponent; in fact, I’m not even done introducing them. After the two outsiders, Hamawy and Altman, you have Cohen, who is backed by the powerful Middlesex County party and is the most natural choice for conservative and pro-Israel voters; Mapp, who is the Union County party’s choice by virtue of being the municipal chairperson in Plainfield, the only Union County municipality in the 12th; Robinson, the fundraising-challenged choice of the Somerset County party (though mostly by default, as local bosses are lukewarm at best on Robinson); and the choice of the Mercer County party, Asw. Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, who really should be doing a lot better than she is as a normie liberal without any scandals.
Then you have the also-rans who may leave a mark: Jay Vaingankar, a Biden administration official running a slick, well-funded campaign that has fallen by the wayside in the face of more connected and more magnetic candidates; Squire Servance, a wealthy attorney who has self-funded his bid to a significant degree; Sam Wang, a Princeton neuroscientist who styles himself a redistricting expert and who drew the congressional map which handed the neighboring 7th District to the GOP; and Sujit Singh, a former Dem-backed candidate for mayor of West Windsor.
At the end of the day, this is Hamawy’s race to lose, and the Squad is quite likely to add a member from suburban New Jersey.
County Commission
Camden County Commission (2 win)
Louis Cappelli (i) vs. Jonathan Young Sr. (i) vs. Vonetta Hawkins vs. Constance Mercedes
County and municipal government, along with the state legislature (up in odd-numbered years), are the real strongholds of the New Jersey machine, and nowhere is that truer than in Camden County, where government at all levels is tightly controlled by George Norcross III. Heading up Norcross’s slate for Camden County Commission are incumbents Louis Cappelli and Jonathan Young Sr.; on the progressive ticket are consultant Vonetta Hawkins, who nearly carried Camden County in a primary challenge to two South Jersey Democratic assemblymen last year, and health care professional Constance Mercedes. Hawkins and Mercedes are making issue of the county’s close relationship with various corporations, such as embattled metal recycler EMR, whose plants just can’t stop catching fire and spewing toxic fumes into the Camden sky.
Essex County Commission At-Large (4 win)
Wayne Richardson (i) vs. Shawn Klein vs. Christine McGrath vs. Abdur Yasin vs. Deb Engel vs. Marques-Aquil Lewis
After Analilia Mejia’s comfortable 33-25 victory in Essex County in the NJ-11 special primary on February 5, no fewer than three of the four at-large members of the Essex County Commission abruptly retired, including vanquished Mejia opponent Brendan Gill. A chaotic county party convention to pick the party slate ensued, and four candidates emerged with the party’s backing: incumbent Wayne Richardson, Verona Councilwoman and gun control activist Christine McGrath, Livingston Mayor Shawn Klein, and West Orange Democratic Chair Abdur Yasin. While the party machine was able to ward off contested primaries in the five district-based seats on the county commission, which are also up this year, they were unable to do the same in the at-large races; two candidates who did not win the nod at the convention chose to proceed to a primary, each representing a different ascendant strain of Essex County progressivism.
Former Maplewood Committeewoman Deb Engel represents the strain more relevant to Mejia: libbed-out, highly educated suburbanites along NJTransit lines. Engel was just about the only Essex County elected official from within the boundaries of NJ-11 to endorse Mejia, with most of the reform-oriented pols betting on Tom Malinowski instead; her home of Maplewood is an educated, >90% Democratic suburb anchored by train service to Newark and New York City, and it’s towns like Maplewood where Engel should do the best. For other pockets of Engel strength, look to Bloomfield, Montclair, South Orange, and Glen Ridge, Mejia’s home.
Former Newark Public Schools board member Marques-Aquil Lewis represents the strain with more countywide clout: Black progressivism as practiced by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, the leader of a large and growing progressive machine centered on Newark. Lewis has bear-hugged Baraka, a close ally and early endorser, and methodically racked up endorsements from elected officials friendly with Baraka throughout Essex County’s Black cities, suburbs, and neighborhoods. He has also been able to cash in a number of union endorsements, likely thanks to Baraka’s strong relationship with North Jersey labor unions.
Lewis and Engel, in the final days of the race, have formed an unofficial slate. Engel has been endorsed by Baraka, liberal suburban reformers have begun to embrace Lewis, and each of Lewis and Engel has taken to promoting the other’s campaign on social media. The question is whether it’s enough for one or both of them to deny a member of the party slate a spot on the Essex County Commission, which handles an annual budget of hundreds of millions.
Hudson County Commission District 9 (West Hudson)
Alex Valdez vs. Mina Ekladious vs. Larry Bennett
Alex Valdez ran against outgoing Commissioner Albert Cifelli in 2023 as a progressive and garnered more than a third of the vote, a respectable margin of defeat under the now-dead county line system. Now, he’s the choice of the party machine, as the Hudson County Democratic Organization frantically cedes a few seats on the county commission to stave off a full revolt which would threaten their control of the body. They are also effectively giving up Districts 3 and 5 and allowing District 2 incumbent Bill O’Dea to break with the HCDO, but those races are uncontested. Not ready to go along are Kearny PBA President Mina Ekladious and Harrison councilman Larry Bennett, but it’s very hard to see either managing to break through Valdez’s progressive-machine united front. (Though Cifelli has bitterly backed Bennett over Valdez, evidently not yet over the indignity of being challenged in 2023.)
Mercer County Commission (2 win)
John Cimino (i) vs. Lucylle RS Walter (i) vs. Nakia White Barr
Incumbent County Commissioners John Cimino and Lucylle RS Walter face a surprisingly stiff challenge from Princeton University official Nakia White Barr. White Barr performed strongly enough at the Mercer County Democratic convention to take advantage of a quirk of Mercer County rules and force Walter and Cimino to share the party slogan with her, a highly unusual feat for a challenger. White Barr is running on a less ideological angle than most New Jersey challengers, though she’s still clearly reform-oriented and set on generational change in government.
Passaic County Commission (2 win)
Orlando Cruz (i) vs. Nick Veliky vs. Ali Aljarrah vs. Ralph Feliciano
This is a three-way race between County Commissioner Orlando Cruz, Clifton party official Nick Veliky, and CAIR-NJ political adviser Ali Aljarrah. (Newcomer Ralph Feliciano is also running, but he’s going to place fourth and I will ignore him.) Cruz is fresh off a humiliating loss for one of Paterson’s two Assembly seats, where he had the party organization’s backing and was nevertheless relegated to third place. However, he’s likely safe as the only incumbent and the best-known name on the ballot in this race.
The real race is likely for second place between Veliky, the machine favorite, and Aljarrah, the progressive favorite; Aljarrah counts among his endorsers a number of progressive state and local elected officials like Baraka, Hudson County Asw. Katie Brennan, his old friends at CAIR-NJ, and progressive organizing powerhouses like CWA 1037, 32BJ SEIU, and Make the Road Action, which has a hub in Passaic County. (Oh, and Bernie Sanders.) The fight between Aljarrah and Veliky has implications for the direction the Democratic Party will take in Passaic County, a heavily Latino and Arab county that shockingly flipped to Trump in 2024 before coming roaring back for Mikie Sherrill in 2025.
Municipal races
Bloomfield Township Council
Ward 1
Rosalee Gonzalez (i) vs. Stefanie Santiago
Ward 2
Jason Martinez vs. Greg Babula vs. Paul Bonica
Ward 3
Sarah Cruz (i) vs. Stef Bootwala
Bloomfield is a trendy, diverse, and growing suburb northwest of Newark, situated along a NJTransit commuter line and home to the very last station on Newark’s small light rail system. Those factors have combined to fuel a progressive insurgency in town, with progressives taking a swing at the township’s at-large council seats in last year’s Democratic primary; progressive Tracy Toler-Phillips was able to upset incumbent councilor Widney Polynice for one of the three seats, giving progressives their first foothold in town hall since the party machine succeeded in ousting appointed Mayor Ted Gamble in 2024. Fast-forward to February 2026: Bloomfield was one of Analilia Mejia’s best towns in the special primary, and suddenly everyone in Bloomfield politics realized the ground had shifted under their feet. The progressive slate consists of Stefanie Santiago in Ward 1, Greg Babula in Ward 2, and Stef Bootwala in Ward 3, while the Bloomfield machine slate is incumbent Rosalee Gonzalez in Ward 1, Jason Martinez in Ward 2, and incumbent Sarah Cruz in Ward 3. (Paul Bonica is allied with neither slate and is sort of just there.)
The Bloomfield machine has spent more than $100,000 defending the town council in this suburb of roughly 55,000, and both sides have called in big endorsements—the machine from Gov. Sherrill and Sen. Booker, and the progressives from Sen. Andy Kim, Rep. Mejia, and local state Sen. Britnee Timberlake, a former machine footsoldier who seems to have decided that the future of politics in her northeast Essex County district is progressive. If progressives sweep, they control the town council and provide a check on machine-backed Mayor Jenny Mundell—and they also send a strong signal that incumbent Assemblyman, and former Mayor, Mike Venezia may be in trouble in his own 2027 primary.
Elizabeth City Council
Ward 1
Carlos Torres (i) vs. Edwin “Eddie” Falcon
Ward 2
Rosa Moreno-Ortega vs. Manuel Medina vs. Jerry Jacobs vs. Isaias Rivera
Ward 5
William Gallman Jr. (i) vs. José Rodriguez
In Ward 1, incumbent Carlos Torres faces a challenge from Eddie Falcon, and in Ward 2, three different candidates share the party slogan: Elizabeth Board of Education members Rosa Moreno-Ortega and Jerry Jacobs and local Little League coach Manuel Medina. Also running is a third member of the Elizabeth Board of Education, Isaias Rivera; Rivera is running without the party slogan, making him the outsider in this crowded race. The hottest race in Elizabeth, however, is in Ward 5.
Ward 5 is a factional fight between Mayor Christian Bollwage, of J. Christian Bollwage Parking Garage fame; and Assemblyman Ed Rodriguez, an upstart freshman who in 2025 won the Democratic Assembly nomination for the Elizabeth-based Legislative District 20 alongside incumbent Annette Quijano—beating out Quijano’s running mate, then-County Commissioner Sergio Granados, by 98 votes for second place and the second spot on Democrats’ general election slate. Rodriguez and Bollwage don't get along, to say the least—Rodriguez, formerly an official in Bollwage’s administration, is suing the city for wrongful termination for what he alleges is his refusal to go along with corruption in city government—and Rodriguez’s candidate is none other than his brother José Rodriguez. Longtime incumbent William Gallman Jr. is mostly a proxy for even-longer-time incumbent Mayor Bollwage, and Bollwage is calling in outside help from Union City Mayor-Senator Brian Stack, the undisputed god of early voting turnout in New Jersey.
Ewing Township Council (2 win)
Sarah Steward (i) vs. Carl Benedetti Jr. vs. Kathleen Culliton Wollert (i)
If you know why Ewing Councilwoman Kathleen Culliton Wollert was dumped by the local party organization, please let me know, because I can’t find anything whatsoever on why Wollert was dropped by the party organization in favor of Ewing party chairman Carl Benedetti Jr., who is challenging her with the machine slogan.
Kearny Town Council
Ward 1
George Zapata (i) vs. Zayda Balcazar
Ward 2
Dennis Solano (i) vs. Julio Huancaya
Ward 3
Sarah Bonilla vs. Edmund Shea
Ward 4
Stathis Theodoropoulos (i) vs. Orlando Miranda
All four of these races are a war between Kearny Mayor Carol Jean Doyle and her own city council. The three incumbents—George Zapata, Dennis Solano, and Stathis Theodoropoulos—crossed Doyle on a controversial budget vote, as did retiring 3rd Ward incumbent Eileen Eckel. Eckel endorsed Sarah Bonilla to succeed her, and shortly thereafter, a slate was announced that included Bonilla and the three incumbents. Zayda Balcazar, Julio Huancaya, Edmund Shea, and Orlando Miranda are the mayor’s recruits, with the machine slogan, to win a supermajority on the town council and give herself full control over the town and its budget.
Livingston Township Council (3 win)
Ed Meinhardt (i) vs. Ketan K. Bhuptani (i) vs. Stacey Abenstein vs. Laurie Kahn vs. Daphne Dan Wang vs. Bill Lam
The fact that three people win—thereby making a three-person slate the most logical strategy—appears to be news to all six candidates for Council in ritzy, leafy Livingston, a blue suburb due west of Newark. Incumbents Ed Meinhardt and Ketan Bhuptani are running together, as are challengers Stacey Abenstein and Laurie Kahn; Daphne Dan Wang and Bill Lam are each sort of off doing their own thing; and everyone but Lam, who is running as almost a single-issue NIMBY, is sharing the party slogan. Meinhardt and Bhuptani appear to be drawing the most support from Livingston’s South Asian community; Abenstein and Kahn from its Jewish community; and Dan Wang and Lam from its Chinese community. (Most Livingston residents are Jewish, South Asian, and/or Chinese.) I do love a race so messy that even the machine barely tries to pick favorites and more or less just throws its hands up in exasperation, but that makes it impossible to handicap.
Maplewood Town Committee (2 win)
Vic DeLuca (i) vs. John Sullivan vs. Martin Ceperley
Maplewood selects its mayor from among the council rather than separately electing them, so Mayor Vic DeLuca is seeking reelection to his council seat (also, they call it a town committee instead of a town council, it’s very annoying.) DeLuca is a fairly normal machine liberal—so unobjectionable that I saw a lot of lawns with signs for both him and county commission challenger Deb Engel, even though Engel is slating with a progressive challenger in this race, SOMA Bike Bus founder and walkability advocate Martin Ceperley. While Ceperley and DeLuca’s camps have been at odds, it does sometimes feel like the odd man out might be DeLuca’s ostensible running mate, John Sullivan, a planning board member and relative skeptic of development who shares the party slogan with DeLuca but doesn’t seem to be leaving as much of a mark as either DeLuca or Ceperley.
New Brunswick Mayor
Jim Cahill (i) vs. Charlie Kratovil
Longtime New Brunswick Mayor Jim Cahill has faced local activist and journalist Charlie Kratovil before—many times. Kratovil, who runs a local news site, is a fixture at council meetings and meetings of other public bodies in New Brunswick, and a vocal critic of the development-focused, opaque, no-dissent-allowed New Brunswick administration. Kratovil has even run against Cahill before as an independent, garnering a little more than a fourth of the vote and winning a couple of precincts in this overwhelmingly Democratic city home to Rutgers’s main campus; a Democratic primary should be an easier lift with a smaller electorate to boot. Kratovil generally aligns with progressives on most issues, and the incumbent is taking him seriously, with the New Brunswick Democrats spending handsomely (think close to six figures) on this year’s municipal primaries.
New Brunswick City Council (3 win)
Rebecca Escobar (i) vs. Petra Gaskins (i) vs. Matthew Ferguson (i) vs. Yeni Mendez Romero vs. Doris Elliott
Kratovil has his own council slate—or he had one. Then, he publicly broke up with Doris Elliott over a disagreement over parking policy, leaving Yeni Mendez Romero as Kratovil’s only formally allied candidate on the ballot (though Elliott still shares their slogan because of how late the breakup was.) This disorganization should help incumbents Rebecca Escobar, Petra Gaskins, and Matthew Ferguson glide to reelection, but they’re spending like they’re worried, as mentioned in the New Brunswick Mayor item.
Perth Amboy City Council (3 win)
Milady Tejeda (i) vs. Kenneth Puccio (i) vs. Hailey Cruz Batista (i) vs. Kenneth Gonzalez vs. Junior Iglesia vs. Lisa Nanton
Incumbents Milady Tejeda, Kenneth Puccio, and Hailey Cruz Batista should be safe in their reelection bid in this overwhelmingly Latino, working-class port city. The slate challenging them is headed by attorney and former municipal court judge Kenneth Gonzalez, who placed third with 17% in the 2024 mayoral primary; also on his slate are former Perth Amboy Board of Education member Junior Iglesia and former City Councilor Lisa Nanton. Perth Amboy does have a tradition of heated intraparty warfare, and this challenge has at least escalated to the point where the incumbents have called in an endorsement from Gov. Sherrill.
Piscataway Township Council
Ward 1
Frank Uhrin (i) vs. Shantell Cherry
Ward 2
Dennis Espinosa (i) vs. Elizabeth “Betsy” Aumack
Ward 3
Sharon Carmichael (i) vs. Viola Stone
Ward 4
Michele Lombardi (i) vs. Rashaad Couloote
Piscataway is a deep-blue suburb in northern Middlesex County wedged between New Brunswick and Plainfield, full of commuters to New Brunswick, Newark, and New York City. It hosts some Rutgers facilities and has the decided progressive bent you might expect of a state school’s college town. It also has a well-organized local progressive club, the Piscataway Progressive Democratic Organization, that has been contesting elections since before the fall of the county line, and winning them ever since. The PPDO notched its first primary wins the year the county line fell, in 2024, winning two of three at-large council seats with Sarah Rashid and Laura Leibowitz. In 2025, Piscataway Board of Education member Loretta Rivers was the club’s candidate for state Assembly, and she nearly won, carrying Piscataway and only falling short due to incumbent Joe Danielsen’s strength in his hometown of Franklin. Now, the PPDO is aiming to take control of town government, running a full slate for all four ward seats on the council. Progressives only need to win two of the four seats for a bare majority, 4-3; three seats would give them a 5-2 majority and breathing room, and 6-1 would be a humiliating sweep for Mayor Brian Wahler ahead of his likely 2028 reelection bid. All four of the progressives are backed by the Working Families Party, Muslim political groups like CAIR-NJ, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and any wins here will be a shot in the arm for progressives statewide.
In Ward 1, incumbent Frank Uhrin faces Board of Education Vice President Shantell Cherry. Uhrin is an old white man facing a younger Black woman, in a ward that is plurality Black where the PPDO generally runs well, and may be in the worst shape of any incumbent. In Ward 2, it’s incumbent Dennis Espinosa against attorney, local community leader, and former fire commissioner Elizabeth “Betsy” Aumack. In Ward 3, Council Vice President Sharon Carmichael faces Viola Stone, the losing candidate off progressives’ three-person 2024 at-large slate and a leader within the PPDO. And in Ward 4, Council President Michele Lombardi faces 26-year-old LGBT/youth activist Rashaad Couloote.
Plainfield City Council
Ward 1
Robert Graham (i) vs. Meghana Anandarangam vs. Yasmin Griffin
Wards 2 & 3 At-Large
Richard Wyatt (i) vs. Shatera Smith
Plainfield is a middle-class city of about 55,000 in western Union County, situated along NJTransit’s Raritan Valley Line. The pre-2026 dividing line in its politics was politicians’ support of or opposition to Mayor Adrian Mapp, and by proxy their positions on development and charter schools (Mapp being staunchly pro-both.) Opinions of Mapp are the dividing line which still controls in the race for the at-large seat representing Wards 2 & 3. (Plainfield has four wards, and a pair of at-large seats elected from candidates from each side of the city—Wards 2 & 3 for the east side, Wards 1 & 4 for the west side.) There, incumbent Richard Wyatt has challenged Mapp in two successive primaries, and the Plainfield party organization’s support for Wyatt is clearly in name only; Mapp allies, both on the council and in County Commissioner Rebecca Williams, are supporting challenger Shatera Smith.
However, in the Ward 1 race, there’s a new dividing line: DSA’s Meg Anandarangam is attempting to turn the Ward 1 race into a referendum on rent control and immigrant protections, in a ward full of immigrants and renters where Mapp is persistently unpopular. Ward 1 incumbent Robert Graham, a realtor, is at least loosely allied with Mapp and has the party slogan, but Anandarangam has run laps around him in fundraising and is the only candidate who is visibly doing anything more than sticking lawn signs in the yards of anyone who doesn’t object. Charter school administrator Yasmin Griffin is…also running, and has her own core of support (though how many votes it will translate into is anyone’s guess.)
Princeton Borough Council (2 win)
David Cohen (i) vs. Jon Durbin vs. Kemilola Leanna Jahnke vs. Marina Rubina
Moderate incumbent David Cohen is probably going to keep his seat, while three candidates are vying for the second, open seat on the ballot. Architect Marina Rubina has the party endorsement and the support of local YIMBY groups, while Jon Durbin has the support of the mayor and local NIMBYs. Kemilola Leanna Jahnke, a member of the town’s civil rights committee, is running on supporting Princeton’s Black community and a generally progressive platform. A progressive sweep would mean both Rubina and Jahnke winning, while a more realistic good night would mean one of them winning alongside Cohen.
Rahway City Council (3 win)
Jeff Brooks (i) vs. Joanna Miles (i) vs. Jeremy Mojica (i) vs. Andrew Garcia Phillips
My home of Rahway, a diverse, dense industrial suburb at the convergence of two NJTransit lines, is hosting a contested and contentious city council primary, with one challenger vying to displace one of three incumbents from the three at-large seats they currently hold. The Rahway council, like most machine governments, operates as a rubber stamp, with every council vote a unanimous 9-0, almost always without meaningful discussion. By many measures, the council has done well: the city is growing rapidly, and the downtown is thriving. However, if you look a little closer, things aren’t so rosy. The city water utility is badly in debt, and the council’s best idea is a deeply unpopular privatization plan that was postponed to after the primary in the face of intense public backlash; recent labor negotiations with the police and the Department of Public Works have gone disastrously and left large swathes of the city workforce without a contract; and the city briefly defunded the local library in an ill-advised and ultimately unsuccessful effort to oust a library director who Mayor Ray Giacobbe didn’t like.
At public meetings regarding all of those issues and more, local community leader and former journalist Andrew Garcia Phillips has been a fixture, a well-informed dissenting voice who gets on the nerves of Giacobbe and his councilpeople by showing up armed with data and a close examination of the fine print of whatever deal or resolution is before the council today. Garcia Phillips, a progressive, says he’ll be a voice of skepticism and transparency on the council, particularly with regards to tax breaks for developers and city contracts to Rahway Democratic campaign donors; the machine incumbents are taking his challenge very normally, smearing him personally on local Facebook to a frankly embarrassing degree. Garcia Phillips’s challenge is that he needs to get more votes than at least one of the three incumbents, Council President Jeff Brooks, Council Vice President Jeremy Mojica, and Councilor Joanna Miles, which is why he’s asking residents who support him to vote for only him, to avoid inadvertently giving votes to someone he might need to beat. A heavy lift, to be sure, but Garcia Phillips has incorporated it into his stump speech, his answers at candidate forums, his social media, and a round of mailers sent to registered Democrats throughout the city. The incumbents are nervous enough to have called in endorsements from Sherrill and Booker.
Roselle Borough Council
Ward 1
Isabel Sousa (i) vs. Cynthia Atkins vs. Richard Villeda
Ward 3
Mario Cornejo Dominguez vs. Cecilia Dallis-Ricks
The Rev. Reginald Atkins served a single term in the state Assembly before retiring in 2025, creating the opening that allowed Ed Rodriguez to win. However, Atkins’s retirement from Trenton did not mean he retired from politics altogether: he stayed on as party chair in his hometown of Roselle, a mostly Black middle-class suburb, and is working to solidify his control over the borough. In Ward 1, the candidate with the party endorsement is the Rev. Atkins’s wife Cynthia Atkins, a member of the borough’s school board, as she seeks to unseat incumbent Isabel Sousa and fend off a challenge from former councilman Richard Villeda. In Ward 3, Mario Cornejo Dominguez has the party slogan and Atkins’s support, while Cecilia Dallis-Ricks is running with Sousa on the Democrats Who Serve slogan.