There’s a deep bench of Democrats to step into New Jersey’s 10th district congressional seat to succeed Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-Newark), who died today after a brief illness.
Since Payne is unopposed, he’ll win the June 4 Democratic primary posthumously. That will leave it up to Democratic county committee members in the 10th – roughly 1,084 of them, about 53.3% from Essex, 28.4% from Union, and 18.3% from Hudson.
The list of potential candidates starts with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who has announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2025. While becoming governor is a long shot for Baraka, winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives could be a sure thing. Some Democrats think Baraka, a strong orator, might flourish in Washington.
Other possible candidates are listed in alphabetical order:
• Renee Burgess, 53, a state senator who previously served as the township council president and Board of Education president in Irvington.
• Hasani K. Council, 27, the Newark Board of Education president and chief of staff to his father, Newark South Ward Councilman and Democratic Chairman Patrick Council.
• Patrick O. Council, 53, a Newark South Ward city councilman and the South Ward Democratic chairman. He’s a former teacher.
• Joseph Cryan, 62, a two-term state senator from Union County with strong roots in Essex, where his late father served as sheriff and assemblyman. Cryan is a former New Jersey Democratic State Chairman and Assembly Majority Leader who served as the Union County sheriff. He’s also the Union Township Democratic municipal chairman, which comes to the convention with 100 votes.
• Ted R. Green, 61, the mayor of East Orange and a former councilman.
• Shennell McCloud, 37, the executive director of Project Ready, a Newark-based community organization.
• LaMonica McIver, 37, the Newark City Council President serving her second term as the councilwoman from the city’s Central Ward. She’s was the personnel director for the Montclair public schools — she’s now at PSE&G — and a longtime community leader. If Baraka were to go to Congress instead, McIver would become the first woman mayor of Newark, the state’s largest city.
• A’Dorian Murray-Thomas, 28, an Essex County Commissioner who is seeing a meteoric rise in Essex County politics. She was elected to the Newark school board in 2019 at age 23 and won election to the commissioner board’s 2nd district last year. A longtime community activist, she is a graduate of Swarthmore College and is studying for divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary.
• Donald M. Payne III, 25, is the son of Donald Payne Jr. and the grandson of Donald M. Payne. He is the social studies department chair at Aquinas Academy at St. Philomena Parish in Livingston.
• Wayne Richardson, 66, a four-term Essex County Commissioner and former business agent for Laborers Local 108; the president of Laborers Local 55 and 2014; and a former organizer for the Laborers Eastern Regional Organizing Fund. He is also a former Newark Planning Board member.
• Denise Ridley, 40, a two-term Jersey City councilwoman from Ward A.
• Rev. Ronald Slaughter, 48, the pastor of St. James AME Church in Newark and the vice chairman of the New Jersey State Parole Board.
• Shanique Speight, 45, a four-term state assemblywoman from Newark who chairs the Assembly Aging and Human Services Committee. Her husband, Andre, is the Newark Central Ward Democratic chairman.
• Sean Spiller, 49, the mayor of Montclair and the president of the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest public employee union. Spiller is not seeking re-election as mayor this year and has been mulling a run for governor.
• Britnee Timberlake, 37, a state senator, former assemblywoman and freeholder, and solid progressive who is viewed as one of Trenton’s young rising stars.
• Dahlia Vertreese, 47, the two-term mayor of Hillside and a former labor relations specialist for the Newark Public Schools. She is a labor organizer for Tom Giblin’s union, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 68.
• Jerry Walker, 53, a former basketball star from Jersey City who is serving his third term as a Hudson County Commissioner.
The 10th district has been drawn as a Black majority seat since 1972, but it took sixteen years and the retirement of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter W. Rodino, Jr. (D-Newark), a white man from Newark’s North Ward, to retire after 40 years for the district to be represented by a Black congressman. The winner was Donald M. Payne, Sr., who had twice challenged Rodino in the Democratic primary.
After Payne died 27 days before the 2012 filing deadline, his seat was filled by his son, then an Essex County freeholder and Newark city councilman, following a spirited primary.
The seat is solidly Democratic: Joe Biden won it with 81% in 2020, Phil Murphy with 78% in 2011, and Payne with 78% in 2022.