Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said he’s running for governor in 2025 to push for change at the New Jersey statehouse for people who have never had access to power.
“We have spent a lot of energy and effort around the state getting other people elected to do things, to represent us, to fight for us — and they get us all the way up to the door of democracy, but we never get the key to go inside,” Baraka, a Democrat, told Gothamist.
The remarks were some of his first since Monday night, when he surprised attendees of a Black History Month event by announcing, “I want to be the governor of the state of New Jersey.”
Baraka said he appreciates the work Gov. Phil Murphy has done, and that New Jersey has long been taking a “long, moderate walk down the right path.” But he said he wants to go further.
“There are things that we have to do in our state to deal with income inequality, to deal with wealth disparity, things that we have to do with building housing that has to be more imaginative, more robust, more aggressive,” Baraka said. “Things that are important for our folks to get them to work, to get them into housing, to reduce the cost of housing, to make the cost of living in New Jersey lower.”
He said his agenda will appeal to regular working families and creating more affordable housing will be his top priority.
His announcement immediately pits the mayors of New Jersey’s two largest cities against each other in next year’s Democratic primary, because Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has already declared his run. Former state Senate President Steven Sweeney has also said he will run from his base of support in south Jersey and among trade unions. Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill are also broadly expected to run.
In the Republican primary, so far state Sen. Jon Bramnick has formally declared a run. Former state Sen. and perennial gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli announced immediately after losing to Murphy in 2021 that he’d run in 2025; he’s recently said he expects to formally launch a campaign soon.
Baraka is popular in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city and the municipality with the largest number of registered Democrats in the state. He was elected mayor in 2014 and has won reelection by a landslide twice since then.
He grew up in Newark, the son of the beat poet and activist Amiri Baraka.
Ras Baraka was the principal of Central High School and was first elected to the municipal council in 2002. He later served as deputy mayor.
The mayor has called for police reform and a statewide civilian review board.
“I would first work with the Legislature to see if they're going to push what they're pushing now,” Baraka said. “I know they want to do this pilot, which is along the line of the gradual walk that we walk in New Jersey. Well, ultimately, I think that we have to sit down with our attorney general and the other folks and figure out how we get real oversight in the state of New Jersey with subpoena power, and what's the right pathway to get that done.”
The primary election is not until June 2025.
