What to know ahead of the New Jersey gubernatorial primary election on Tuesday
NEW JERSEY -- Nearly a dozen candidates will compete in New Jersey on Tuesday for the chance to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. Voters will also pick nominees for the state General Assembly.
The race for the Democratic nomination for governor features a crowded field of prominent current and former officeholders: U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, New Jersey Education Association president and former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney.
Immigration has been a major issue in the campaign. In May, the state's top federal prosecutor dropped a trespassing case against Baraka, who was arrested earlier in the month at a protest outside a new federal immigration detention center.
In the Republican primary, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli makes his third attempt for the state's highest office. He had a strong showing as the 2021 Republican nominee against Murphy, coming within about 3 percentage points of unseating the Democratic incumbent. He also ran in 2017 but lost the nomination to then-Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.
Also seeking the Republican nomination Tuesday are state Sen. Jon Bramnick, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac, talk radio host Bill Spadea and general contractor Justin Barbera.
President Donald Trump has been a key figure in the primary, as he has been in other GOP contests across the country in recent years. He endorsed Ciattarelli in May and campaigned for him in a virtual rally on Monday, despite the candidate having said in 2015 that he was not fit to serve as president. Bramnick is the only current Trump critic in this year's GOP primary field.
Further down the ballot, all 80 state General Assembly seats are up for election this year, although only 25 districts face contested races. Primary voters may select up to two candidates per district, and each race will have two winners. Democrats have a lopsided majority in the chamber.
State Senate seats will not be up for election until 2027. Some voters in Bergen and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey will pick nominees for a special state Senate election in District 35, although neither the Democratic nor Republican primary is contested. Democrats also have a decisive majority in the state Senate.
Here's a look at what to expect Tuesday:
Primary day
New Jersey's state primary will be held Tuesday, June 10. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
What's on the ballot?
The primaries for governor, state General Assembly and the uncontested special primaries in state Senate District 35.
Who gets to vote?
Registered party members may vote only in their own party's primary. In other words, Democrats can't vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may participate in either primary, but voting in a party's primary will enroll them in that party.
What do turnout and advance vote look like?
As of Sunday, there were about 6.6 million registered voters in New Jersey. Of those, 37% were Democrats, or about 2.4 million voters, and about 25% were Republicans, or 1.6 million voters. An additional 2.4 million voters were not affiliated with any party.
In the 2021 primaries for governor, overall turnout was about 6% of registered voters in the Democratic primary and about 5% in the Republican primary. Nearly 383,000 ballots were cast in the Democratic primary and about 339,000 in the Republican primary.
Ballots cast before primary day in 2021 made up about 38% of the total vote in the Democratic primary and 19% in the Republican primary. In the state primary two years later, 55% of the Democratic primary vote and 29% of the Republican primary vote was cast before Election Day.
As of Thursday morning, more than 248,000 Democratic primary ballots and more than 91,000 Republican primary ballots had been cast before primary day.
How long does vote-counting usually take?
In the 2024 presidential election in New Jersey, the first results the AP reported came from Hudson County at 8:01 p.m. ET, one minute after polls closed. Vote tabulation ended for the night at 4:21 a.m. ET in Burlington County with about 95% of votes counted.
Are we there yet?
As of Tuesday, there will be 147 days until the November general election.
For more on the leading candidates in this year's gubernatorial race, watch this special edition of Up Close with Bill Ritter.
The Assoc
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