Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing column called Camden Front and Center, analyzing the city’s politics, development, and power structures. It reflects the author’s examination and perspective on how decisions by political, business, and civic leaders impact the city’s Black and Latino residents.
New Jersey is widely considered a solidly blue state, but there’s real fear of it becoming red.
Since 1992, New Jersey has elected the Democratic candidate for president and, since 2002, elected three Democratic governors to one Republican. Both houses of the state legislature have been under Democratic control since 2004.
Democrats have a firm hold of political power in the state, and yet, many people are worried that the Republican, Jack Ciattarelli, will win the gubernatorial election in November and begin New Jersey’s turn to a red state.
It’s easy to blame Mikie Sherrill’s campaign for its milquetoast approach to this election season, which follows the playbook of Democrats in national elections, focusing on denouncing Donald Trump and his MAGA acolytes. Unfortunately, that didn’t work for Hillary Clinton in 2016 or for Kamala Harris in 2024. Sherrill’s campaign has failed to energize Democratic voters.
Winning the primary over progressive candidates was no mandate in favor of moderate politics. The progressive vote was split between Newark mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City mayor Steve Fulop. Baraka, who endorsed Sherrill, said policy conversations leading to his endorsement have been “painful,” as some supporters don’t agree with the endorsement. Fulop admitted he remains “somewhat of an uninspired voter.”
All that makes a fear of New Jersey becoming a red state a real one. But, the reality is that… come close… *whispers* New Jersey is already a red state.
You notice as soon as you leave the state’s urban centers. It’s very clear on the 2016, 2020, and 2024 electoral maps that New Jersey is very red, particularly in the suburbs and rural areas. In many communities, the cultural and political tenor mirrors that of states long considered conservative.
Voter registration numbers may tell a different story, with Democratic registered voters outnumbering Republicans. Twenty-one of New Jersey’s twenty-five largest cities by population are in counties where Democratic voters have a large majority over Republican voters.
But what are Democrats?
At least in New Jersey presidential or gubernatorial politics, they’re not left-of-center or progressive. They’re liberal in their politics, which means they’re likely moderate. This is specifically the white liberal—Mikie Sherrill, for example, is a white liberal… a moderate. They occupy, as Assata Shakur said, a space somewhere between:
“The extreme right, who are fascist, racist capitalist dogs like Ronald Reagan, who come right out and let you know where they’re coming from… and… the left, who are supposed to be committed to justice, equality, and human rights. And somewhere between those two points is the liberal.”
Sure, according to Sister Assata’s definition, liberals are preferred over the extreme right, and yet they disappoint by failing to embrace the principles of the left in their politics. Their goal isn’t a world that deconstructs systemic institutions that are tools of oppressing historically marginalized groups, e.g., Black people and the poor. Their goal is global hegemony through diplomatic (economic sanctions) or military (drone strikes) violence.
In exchange, the liberal voter receives a level of riches and luxury as a result of the superexploitation of Black and brown workers across the world, fomenting an even greater desire to consume within us all. That sounds more like a conservative than a progressive to me.
Now, liberals and conservatives aren’t the same. Liberals in office wouldn’t ignore the rule of law, strip away the rights of citizens, attack federal workers, or deconstruct the administrative state. They likely wouldn’t, whereas conservatives would and currently are.
But states are determined red (Republican) or blue (Democrat) according to voters. It’s not simply because of who occupies the halls of power. If that were true, the Democratic Party wouldn’t be a party of coalitions.
Over the years, the Democratic voter has been a coalition of Black and brown voters, along with the white middle-class and white working-class voters. But the white working-class voter has shifted Republican (as well as some within the white middle-class). Not because of economic discontent, but because Donald Trump has redirected their frustrations, scapegoating Black people, immigrants, and the poor.
Many self-identified moderate white people were out protesting on “No-Kings Day,” protesting policies they likely assumed were for people of color and the foreign-born among them only, not white folks. A sizable population of these people likely voted for Donald Trump, yet didn’t consider themselves MAGA, or racist at the very least.
Sister Assata spoke to this:
“History has shown me that as long as some white middle-class people can live high on the hog, take vacations to Europe, send their children to private schools, and reap the benefits of their white skin privileges, then they are ‘liberals.’ But when times get hard and money gets tight, they pull off that liberal mask and you think you’re talking to Adolf Hitler. They feel sorry for the so-called underprivileged just as long as they can maintain their own privileges.”
Newsflash: many of those same people residing in New Jersey may likely vote for Jack Ciattarelli.
Mikie Sherrill is working to convince these people that Trump’s crassness, law-breaking, and authoritarian tendencies aren’t what New Jersey needs in a governor. But that argument falls in the face of the reality that Trump was likely voted for by the voters Sherrill is courting.
It’s why Ciattarelli’s platform, mirroring Trump administration policies, has gained traction here. It’s why Camden City is governed by neo-colonialist means as a result of cooperation between South Jersey’s Democrats and Republicans. It’s why Ras Baraka found discussions over policy with Mikie Sherrill and her campaign “painful.”
Moderate politics are often center-right. They cherry-pick the issues that don’t require an upheaval of whiteness; only an illusion of reforming it, because they are invested in it…as are conservatives. Whether they are white people seeking privileges or non-white people seeking adjacency and access to such privileges, they’re invested. However, whiteness cannot be reformed, and neither can liberalism.
As Kwame Ture warned:
“The biggest problem with the white liberal in America, and perhaps the liberal around the world, is that his primary task is to stop confrontation, stop conflicts, not to redress grievances… Confrontation would disrupt the smooth functioning of the society and so the politics of the liberal leads him into a position where he finds himself politically aligned with the oppressor rather than with the oppressed.”
If New Jersey Democrats, and Democrats nationally, are serious about winning elections, they must also be serious about looking less like their Republican opponents. They must articulate policy positions that prioritize the multicultural coalition, working-class communities, and indigent populations. They mustn’t be afraid to lose white voters; they’ve lost them anyway.
There’s no need to fear Jack Ciattarelli as governor. The environment for that to happen is already in place. New Jersey is a red state. Nov. 4 may be confirmation.
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