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Little competition for NJ Legislature primaries, and ballot gives party favorites an edge
By
Nancy Solomon
Published May 30, 2023
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By
Nancy Solomon
Published May 30, 2023
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The New Jersey State Legislature now has more open seats — races without an incumbent running — than at any time in the last 12 years.
In most states, that would be expected to increase the number of competitive races. But that hasn’t happened in New Jersey, where most races in the June 6 primary are uncontested.
“Even when incumbents are stepping away, even when there is a climate that should encourage competition, our system is such that there really is no competition and a lot of ballots have no contested races at all,” said Julia Sass Rubin, associate professor at Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. She researches the impact of ballot design and party endorsements on New Jersey elections.
Only 13% of state Senate and Assembly seats have contested primaries, meaning races where more than one person is running for their party’s nomination for each available seat. The national average is 20%, according to Ballotpedia.org, a nonprofit and nonpartisan election information hub.
All 40 state Senate seats and all 80 Assembly seats are on the ballot this year.
This is the first election since legislative districts’ boundaries were redrawn in 2021, a process that takes place following each U.S. Census. Many legislators who found themselves in different or reconfigured districts decided to retire rather than face off with other incumbents or campaign in communities that don’t know them.
One of the chief reasons New Jersey has fewer competitive races is what’s known as “the county line,” many political scientists and political activists say. They argue the ballots used by most counties for primaries give party-endorsed candidates an advantage over outsiders who want to challenge party leadership.
Key dates in NJ’s primary elections
- May 30: Deadline to apply by mail for a vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots can be returned at designated drop boxes, at county Board of Elections offices or through the mail.
- June 2-4: Early in-person voting. Polls are open Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at locations in every county. No appointment is necessary.
- June 5: The deadline to apply in person for a vote-by-mail ballot is 3 p.m.
- June 6: Primary Election Day. Polls close at 8 p.m. Vote-by-mail ballots must be returned or postmarked by that time as well.
To vote in a New Jersey party primary, a voter must be registered with that party. Independent voters can declare affiliations as late as Primary Election Day, but voters can only switch existing affiliations 55 days or more in advance.
County party organizations endorse candidates for each office, with the exception of two lightly populated, rural counties: Salem and Sussex. Those endorsed candidates are placed in a single column or row. The “county line” typically includes the names voters might find most familiar — such as candidates running for governor, president or the U.S. Senate — leading the slate, though this year, there are no statewide races. The practice sways many party faithful to vote for everyone on the line, according to Rubin’s research for the New Jersey Policy Perspective think tank.
New Jersey is the only state in the country where ballots are organized into lines of endorsed slates.
“It's not really how democracy is supposed to work,” Sass Rubin said. “The reason we have primaries is because we decided to let individual voters decide who should be their candidate, not the parties.”
A group of former candidates and the New Jersey Working Families Alliance filed a lawsuit in 2021 challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s ballot designs. The case remains undecided. In court papers, the lawyer for one of the county clerks named in the suit, Ocean County’s Scott Colabella, argued the endorsement and ballot design is within the political parties’ rights.
“If plaintiff's challenge prevails in this case, it will impose severe burdens on the associational rights of political parties, small and large, and candidates who share similar views and want to express those views to the voters by grouping together on the ballot,” wrote attorney Christopher Khatami.
‘Essentially electioneering’
In 2017, Gov. Phil Murphy was able to secure the Democratic Party's endorsement in all but the two counties that do not use the ballot line, and he has continued to support the system. Those who support the party endorsement process also say it works well because the party leaders know the candidates and pay more attention to politics than the average voter.
The process varies across the state, but some of the most powerful party organizations in New Jersey decide on the endorsements among the leadership, and never put those decisions to votes among elected district leaders.
For example, in Legislative District 28, one of its two state Assembly seats is open. Assemblymember Mila Jasey, a Democrat from South Orange, is retiring after redistricting moved her town from the 27th District into the more urban 28th, where voters don’t know her as well.
The Essex County Democratic Committee endorsed the one remaining incumbent, Cleopatra Tucker of Newark, and Garnet Hall, a longtime member of the Maplewood Democratic Committee. That put Hall and Tucker on the party-supported line. But another candidate, former Maplewood Mayor Frank McGehee, is alone on his own line.
The endorsements were made by leaders in the Essex County Democratic Committee, without any involvement of the rank-and-file committee members.
“Most counties have a convention and all district leaders meet up in person and they vote, and whoever gets the most votes out of all the district leaders there gets endorsed,” said Rebecca Scheer, a member of the Maplewood Democratic Committee. “In Essex County, we don't have a convention. District leaders never vote on anything.”
Scheer said she likes Garnet Hall, but objects to the process, as well as the way the ballots are laid out to give the endorsed candidates a leg up.
“I definitely don't think that endorsed candidates should have different ballot placement. That's essentially electioneering,” Scheer said. “You have to stand 500 feet away from your polling place if you have any candidate literature. And then voters go right in and they see the ballot, and that's essentially telling them on their ballot, ‘These are the real candidates. These are the ones you want to vote for.’ So I don't think that part is appropriate.”
A ballot for primary voters in Maplewood, New Jersey. All of the candidates endorsed by the local Democratic party appear together in a row, starting with Renee Burgess for state Senate. But other candidates, such as Frank E. McGehee for Assembly and Justin Harris for the Board of County Commissioners, appear on their own, mostly-empty line, as members of another slate. Political experts say candidates paired up with recognizable names on a filled-out, party-endorsed line have a significant advantage.
Nancy Solomon/Gothamist
Joy Bembry-Freeman and Willie Jetti are running unopposed in the Republican primary for those seats, but the district is overwhelmingly Democratic, so the winners of the primary are almost certain to win in November.
Like in Essex County, Democratic organizations in Hudson and Camden counties do not hold conventions and have large Democratic majorities.
“The Hudson County Democratic Organization — the chair of that organization has the unilateral right to decide who is going to be on the ballot with their endorsement,” Hoboken City Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher said. “It's really more of a faux process to me than it's an election. It's really almost like the necessary means to the end of what is really more like appointments, right?”
Hudson includes some or all of three legislative districts, with most primary races unopposed, and Republicans declining to run candidates at all in some races. In the 31st District, Shanelle Smith will run for the Democratic nomination for Assembly on the “Progressive Democrats of Hudson County” line, against the two candidates who have the county party’s backing, Barbara McCann Stamato and William Sampson. Also in that district, Michael Griffin will run for the Democratic nomination for state Senate on the “Progressive” line against the county party’s pick, current Assemblymember Angela V. McKnight.
A chilling effect
Both the Democratic and Republican parties use the county line system. But Matt Hale, associate professor of political science and public affairs at Seton Hall University, said Democrats in New Jersey are more organized in most counties. And they hold much more power overall, by virtue of their larger numbers.
“The party apparatus in Democratic counties are very strong and very powerful,” he said.
That power translates into getting voters to the polls on Election Day, picking candidates or even handing out government jobs to those who volunteer for the party, he said.
“The Republicans, you know, they're a little bit less organized overall than Democrats on a county-by-county basis. And that leads to the ability of non-party approved Republicans to take a shot,” Hale said.
That can be seen in two Republican primary fights in South Jersey, where candidates aligned with former President Donald Trump are battling more moderate Republicans. Political analysts say those races — the 3rd District in Gloucester, Salem and Cumberland counties, as well as the 4th District in Gloucester and Camden — are some of the only competitive primary races in New Jersey, out of the 120 Legislature seats on the ballot.
Sass Rubin says it’s not just the lack of competitive races that expose the problems with New Jersey’s ballot system. It also can be demonstrated by those who drop out and never run.
This year, the Mercer County executive, Brian Hughes, lost the endorsement of the Democratic Party to current Assemblymember Daniel Benson. Hughes has been in office for 19 years but when he lost the ability to run on the “county line,” he dropped out.
In 2021, when state Assemblymember Nicholas Chiaravalloti lost the Hudson County party endorsement after six years in the legislature, he dropped out of his race. William Sampson got the line, ran unopposed and won the seat.
“Chiaravalloti was in the leadership. He's an incumbent. He's well-liked. He has a lot of support. He decides not to run for re-election because he knows he's gonna lose in the primary,” Sass Rubin said. “And there are many, many examples like this. So it's not surprising that once the endorsements are announced, people drop out, and that's why we don't have a choice.”
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