It's the economy, estúpido: New Jersey governor's race tests Democrats' efforts to win back Latinos

NEWARK, N.J. — A congresswoman and former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot secured the endorsement of the highest-ranking Hispanic official in her state. A mayor highlighted his arrest by immigration officials. A congressman campaigned at a Latino supermarket. And another mayor decided to put his self-taught Spanish to use on the trail.

The New Jersey gubernatorial primary has emerged as a crucial test for Democrats seeking to regain Latino support nationally. It highlights the challenges in traditionally blue areas where the party's loss of support among Hispanics in 2024 was even more pronounced than in battleground states. President Donald Trump slashed Democratic margins in New Jersey and New York, even flipping some heavily Latino towns he had lost by 30 and 50 percentage points in 2016.

The Democratic primary for governor features an experienced field of 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.

Although Trump made closing U.S. borders a central promise of his campaign, his economic message hit home with Latinos. More Hispanics saw inflation as the most important concern last fall than white voters, AP VoteCast showed. That lesson has been taken to heart in this year's campaign, with strategists, unions, organizers and politicians pivoting away from immigration and putting pocketbook concerns at the forefront of their appeals.

''At the end of the day, if you're worried about paying your bills and being safe at night, everything else is secondary,'' Rep. Gottheimer said in an interview. ''I think that is front and center in the Latino community.''

Warning signs for Democrats

Laura Matos, a Democratic National Committee member from New Jersey and board member of Latina Civic Action, said the party is still finding its way with Hispanic voters, warning that support can't be taken for granted even when Democrats win most of it.

While there was a big rightward swing among Hispanics in Texas and Florida in 2024, it was similarly pronounced in blue states like New Jersey and New York. Here, 43% of Latino voters supported Trump, up from 28% in 2020. In New York, 36% of Latino voters supported Trump, up from 25% in 2020, according to AP VoteCast.

Understanding that all Latino voters don't think or vote alike helps. Compared to the 2020 election, Trump gained significantly with Dominican voters, where he went from 31% to 43% of support. Of the 2 million Latinos in New Jersey, more than 375,000 are Dominican, making up the second largest Hispanic group in New Jersey, after Puerto Ricans, a group where Trump also increased his support from 31% to 39%, the survey showed.

But sometimes candidates overthink such targeted appeals.

''The November election results in parts of New Jersey should serve as a big warning sign that Democrats need to think about how they're communicating with some of these voters,'' Matos said.

Sherrill's campaign manager acknowledged in a memo to supporters last month that ''there is a real risk of a Republican winning in November." New Jersey tilts Democratic in presidential and Senate elections, but Republicans have won the governorship in recent decades.

Focusing on the economy

Strategists, organizers, union leaders and some candidates agree that what they are hearing from Latinos is consistent with the concerns of other working class voters.

Ana Maria Hill, of Colombian and Mexican descent, is the New Jersey state director of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, where half of the members are Hispanic. Hill says raising the minimum wage and imposing new regulations to cap rent increases are popular among those she has been calling to support Newark Mayor Baraka. She says Democrats lost ground by not acknowledging real-world struggles that hit Latinos hard after inflation spiked following the pandemic.

''I think where we lost voters last year was when workers asked ‘What's going on with the economy?' We said ‘the economy is great.' And it could be true, but it's also true that eggs cost $10, right? It's also true that a gallon of milk costs $6.''

Taking that lesson to heart, Gottheimer held a press conference at a Latino supermarket in Elizabeth, a vibrant Latino hub south of Newark, against a backdrop of bottles of a corn oil used in many Hispanic kitchens. Sherrill headed to a Colombian restaurant, also in Elizabeth, on Saturday for a ‘Get Out the Vote' rally.

One of her advisers, Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor activist who ran for the U.S. Senate last year, said candidates who visit Latino businesses and talk about the economic challenges the way Sherrill has done show they get it.

''She has a message that covers a lot of big issues. But when it comes to Latinos, we've been focusing on the economy, affordable housing, transportation, and small business growth,'' Campos-Medina said.

When state Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz, the state's highest-ranking Hispanic official, endorsed Sherrill last week, she cited her advocacy for affordable child care directly, for instance.

A candidate's arrest

Trump's four months in office have been defined by his aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration. That gave Baraka a chance to seize the spotlight on a non-economic issue as an advocate for immigrant residents in Newark. He was arrested while trying to join an oversight tour of a 1,000-bed immigrant detention center. A trespass charge was later dropped, but he sued interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba over the dropped prosecution last week.

''I think all this stuff is designed to be a distraction,'' he said recently. ''But I also think that us not responding is consent. Our silence is consent. If we continue to allow these people to do these things and get away with it, right, they will continue to do them over and over and over again.''

In one of his final campaign ads in Spanish, he used footage from the arrest and the demonstrations to cast himself as a reluctant warrior, with text over the images saying he is ''El Único,'' Spanish for ''the only one,'' who confronts Trump.

Confident Republicans

Former state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli is making his third bid for governor, and Trump's backing may help. But Chris Russell, a Ciattarelli campaign consultant, said Democrats' habit of misreading Latino voters matters, too.

''Democrats believe the key to winning these folks over is identity politics.'' He added: ''They're missing the boat.''

Ciattarelli faces four challengers for the GOP nomination in Tuesday's primary.

During a telephone rally for Ciattarelli last week, Trump called New Jersey a ''high-tax, high-crime sanctuary state," accusing local officials of not cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

But Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, another contender for the Democratic nomination, said he is not entirely convinced the Democratic party will keep losing support in New Jersey. He thinks the gubernatorial race will be a referendum on current Gov. Phil Murphy. Immigration and the economy may enter some Hispanic voters' thinking, but how that plays out is anybody's guess.

''The Latino community is two things in New Jersey. It is growing significantly, and it is a jump ball. There's nobody that has an absolute inside track.''

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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.