2025 Primary - June 10th

View prior voter guides: 2024 Primary, 2024 General

SOMA Action is a grassroots organization in South Orange and Maplewood NJ focused on driving progressive change. We are unabashedly progressive and seek to provide useful and transparent information about the issues affecting our towns. Below please find information on the candidates and issues appearing on the 2025 Primary ballot in SOMA.

If you are a candidate wishing to correct an error/omission or provide links to more information, please contact info@somaaction.org.

SOMA Action Endorsements
Press Release

  • Governor: Steven Fulop

  • State Assembly: Garnet Hall and Chigozie Onyema

About My Ballot

  • This is the second primary election since the court struck down the “county line” ballot design last year. All candidates for each office will appear in one column. In each column, voters should vote for ONE candidate except for the State Assembly race, where voters should vote for TWO. Candidates are listed in randomly drawn order, and position does not reflect party endorsement. South Orange residents will not have any elections for municipal office on their primary ballot.

    image|Maplewood sample ballot|#

    The slogans below candidate names are chosen by the candidates, except for “Essex County Democratic Committee, Inc,” which is the official slogan given to candidates endorsed by Essex County’s Democratic party. (Why “Inc?” Incorporating prevents unendorsed candidates from using the county party’s slogan due to a state law requiring written permission to use a company’s name on the ballot.)

    1. Vote by Mail: If you did not already receive a vote by mail ballot, you may request one by printing and mailing this form by June 3, 2025. Once you have filled out your ballot, you may drop it in any drop box (e.g. at the Gazebo by the South Orange train station or at the Hilton Library Branch in Maplewood) or mail it. Mail ballots must be postmarked by 8 pm on Election Day.

    2. Vote Early In Person: Early in-person voting will be available June 3-June 8, 2025. Look here for polling locations and hours. They are NOT the same as your election day polling place.

    3. Vote on Election Day: Find your polling place here. Polls will be open from 6 am - 8 pm on election day (June 10, 2025).

    If you are not yet registered to vote, you may do so here by May 20, 2025.

State Races

  • Highly competitive six way race among Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer, U.S. Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, Former Montclair Mayor and current NJ Education Association President Sean Spiller, and Former State Senate President Steve Sweeney. The general election is also expected to be highly competitive.

    Progressive activists have not yet coalesced around a single candidate. Based on endorsements by progressive groups and internal polling conducted by Indivisible One New Jersey (of which SOMA Action is a member), progressives appear to be largely split between Ras Baraka and Steve Fulop, with Mikie Sherrill also drawing support.

    As of April 17, all six candidates appear to have a viable path to winning the nomination. 

    • Party support: Mikie Sherrill has been endorsed by ten Democratic County Committees (including Essex), Steve Sweeney by six, and Josh Gottheimer by two. In past years, this would have made Sherrill the prohibitive favorite and driven other candidates out of the race. With the demise of the county line, however, Party-endorsed candidates no longer receive preferential ballot placement. It remains to be seen how much of an advantage get-out-the-vote efforts by the Party will provide.

    • Running against the Party: In contrast to courting Party support, Steve Fulop is running directly against the Democratic Party, skipping the Party nominating conventions and building his own slate of candidates for state assembly races across the state. He is also rolling out his picks for appointments early (including South Orange Mayor Sheena Collum for Lt. Governor) in order to build a team of people to counter the party machine.

    • Early tests of GOTV: NJ requires all candidates for governor to submit at least 2,500 signatures to appear on the ballot. Ras Baraka turned in the most with 10,806 followed by Sean Spiller with 8,329 and Mikie Sherrill with 8,181. Other candidates are listed here.

    • Polling: There isn’t much polling, but as of late April, early poll numbers show a tight race with Sherill leading slightly and the second place candidate shifting from poll to poll. An updating list of polls results can be found on Wikipedia.

    Information about the candidates

    Side by side comparisons:

    Forums:

    Candidate websites (in alphabetical order):

    Also check out more analysis of candidates’ plans and claims from the New Jersey Democrat, written by investigative journalists (and SOMA Action members!) Bob Dreyfuss and Barbara Dreyfuss.

  • This is a competitive primary between incumbent Assemblywomen Garnet Hall and Cleopatra Tucker as well as challenger Chigozie Onyema. Voters will elect two of the three candidates. The winners of the Democratic Primary will win the general election, as no Republicans are contesting the seat.

    The 28th Legislative District covers Hillside, Irvington, Maplewood, Newark’s South and West Ward, and South Orange. It elects two Assembly members to the New Jersey State Assembly, which consists of 80 members elected every two years. With the State Senate, the Assembly passes laws for New Jersey and decides the state budget. Democrats currently control both State Assembly and the State Senate as well as the Governorship.

    Until this year, the chair of the Essex County Democratic Committee essentially picked who would hold the State Assembly seats. By controlling the committee’s endorsement, the chair could give candidates preferential placement on the “county line” of the ballot. This gave those candidates an almost insurmountable advantage. That changed last year when a judge struck down the line and the state legislature redesigned the ballot. 

    All three candidates now have a potential path to victory. Chigozie Onyema is backed by the county party chair, won a secret ballot endorsement vote by elected members of the Essex County Democratic Committee, and is endorsed by the anti-machine Working Families Party. That breadth of support gives him a significant advantage. Cleopatra Tucker is also endorsed by the county committee, meaning party resources will support her efforts to get out the vote. Garnet Hall did not receive the party endorsement, but she subsequently chose to run on a slate with gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop, giving her access to his slate’s efforts to turn out the vote. 

    Without the advantage of the county line, much will depend on the incumbent candidates’ ability to get support outside of their hometowns (Newark for Tucker and Maplewood for Hall). The last time an independent candidate from Maplewood ran (former Mayor Frank McGehee in 2023), he won in South Orange and Maplewood, but was swamped by the county line in other municipalities. 

    Candidate Information

    Because this district is heavily left leaning, there tends to be a relatively little difference between Assembly candidates in their support for progressive policies. Below is information on the key areas SOMA Action has been working on and our experience with each of the candidates. Where applicable, candidates are rated “satisfactory,” “unsatisfactory,” or “exemplary” in each area based on the interactions our committees have had with them. Constituents in other areas of the district may have different experiences with the candidates.

    View State Assembly Candidate Evaluations Here

    The NAACP also held a candidate forum. View the recording here.

County and Local Races

  • Uncontested primary. Democratic Incumbent Chris Durkin is near certain to win in the general election.

    The Essex County Clerk administers elections as well as providing a variety of recordkeeping services to residents of Essex County. These include processing passport applications, issuing ID cards, registering business trade names, and issuing some licenses. The incumbent Clerk, Chris Durkin, has served since 2006.

    Issues

    SOMA Action’s key interest is how the Clerk administers elections, especially ensuring that ballots have a recountable paper trail, and that all candidates are treated equally in the ballot design and in the process for determining candidate order. In 2019, SOMA Action worked with the Board of County Commissioners and election officials, including Clerk Durkin, to ensure that the county adopted hand-marked paper ballots with optical scanners. Clerk Durkin was supportive of that process.

    In 2023 and 2024, SOMA Action joined a coalition pushing for an end to the “County Line” ballot design. (Overview here, under “Why does my ballot look different this year?”) During that process, we were deeply disappointed that Clerk Durkin joined a lawsuit by county clerks seeking to continue using the county line, though Essex County did ultimately withdraw from that suit. When the court ordered counties to implement office block ballots, several counties were able to create ballots that clearly separated candidates for different offices, but Essex County ballots failed to completely eliminate the visual grouping of the line. Although the positioning of candidates on the ballot is now randomized, we remain concerned that the ballot is still not visually distinct enough from the prior design to make it clear to voters accustomed to voting for the first candidate in every column that the ballot has changed.

  • Primary is contested. District Leader Jane Collins-Colding is running against CHS Class of 2023 graduate Max Kravitz to fill the seat held by current TC member Deb Engel, who chose not to run for re-election. The winner of the Democratic Primary will win the general election.

    The five-person Maplewood Township Committee is the legislative body of Maplewood. Members serve three-year staggered terms such that one or two members are up for election each year. The Township Committee is responsible for passing laws, budgets, setting policy, and hiring key municipal staff. Maplewood does not directly elect its mayor. Instead, the Township Committee elects one of their members to serve as Mayor and another to serve as Deputy Mayor for one-year terms.

    Unlike South Orange, the Maplewood Township Committee is a partisan office. Because of Maplewood’s heavily Democratic lean, the Democratic Primary decides who is on the Township Committee. No Republicans filed to run this year.

    Candidate Information:

    SOMA Action won’t be able to do a full evaluation for the Maplewood Township Committee race. However, we encourage Maplewood residents to take advantage of opportunities to meet and talk with the candidates. Key issues include: continuing sanctuary policies for immigrants, supporting the LGBTQIA+ community, promoting affordability and affordable housing, bike/pedestrian friendly designs, green space, and managing the budget (especially given federal cuts).

    Resources to learn about the candidates: