This story was updated at 11:09 p.m. with final vote totals.
After a turbulent virtual county convention, Essex County Democrats have voted to endorse Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill (D-Montclair), who overcame a late effort to get the county organization to abstain from endorsing anyone in the special election for New Jersey’s 11th congressional district.
In the final tally, Gill won 132 votes, while 90 committeemembers voted “abstain,” which if it had won a plurality would have meant that the county party would have stayed neutral in the race to succeed Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill. (The convention was beset with technical issues throughout and around 30 ballots were not initially counted, but these totals reflect the full 258 votes cast.)
A smattering of votes went to other candidates: 17 to former Rep. Tom Malinowski, six to Passaic County Commissioner John Bartlett (D-Wayne), six to Maplewood Committeeman/former Mayor Dean Dafis, three to Bernie Sanders 2020 political director Analilia Mejia, three to Lieutenant Gov. Tahesha Way, and one to former congressional staffer Marc Chaaban. Even if every voter who opted for one of the non-Gill candidates had chosen to abstain instead, Gill still would have narrowly prevailed.
Twelve of the 13 Democrats running for the seat were on committeemembers’ ballots; the one exception was Morris Township Committeeman/former Mayor Jeff Grayzel, who boycotted a convention that he decried as “rigged” in favor of Gill.
A Gill endorsement was by far the likeliest outcome of the night, and it came with more drama than might have been expected given the commissioner’s deep roots in Essex County politics. But several of the other candidates – like Dafis and Mejia, both county committeemembers who were eligible to vote at the convention – have their own Essex political networks, and the county committee includes many progressive members who have become increasingly restive in recent cycles.
With the party endorsement in hand, Gill will be able to use the Essex Democratic slogan on the February 5 special primary ballot, and he’ll go forward with official support in a county that accounts for close to half of the 11th district’s Democratic primary electorate.
“I’m honored to earn the endorsement of the Essex County Democratic Organization,” Gill said in a statement following his victory. “The Essex County Democratic District Leaders are my neighbors and they are hardworking volunteers who power our elections, helping elect leaders like Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, Senator Andy Kim, Senator Cory Booker, and Congresswoman LaMonica McIver. Their work is the reason we keep New Jersey blue. I’m proud to have their trust.”
The more than three-hour long convention did not, however, begin with the endorsement vote itself. Instead, Essex County Democratic Chairman LeRoy Jones chose to start with a vote on whether or not to hold the convention tonight at all. A number of county committeemembers and 11th district candidates had called for it to be delayed in order to give more time for everyone to learn about the race.
Jones said that the convention was scheduled so rapidly – the filing deadline for the election was just yesterday – because the deadline for changing ballot slogans is approaching on December 4, meaning that Essex Democrats needed to award their endorsement quickly in order for it to have an effect on primary ballots. (Another county organization, the Morris Democrats, chose instead to hold their convention on December 14 and relinquish their ability to award a ballot slogan.)
The vote was close, but narrowly came down in favor of keeping the convention on track: 133 committeemembers voted in favor of delaying, 142 voted against.
Jones also faced an early challenge over the party’s decision not to use ranked-choice voting, instead allowing a candidate to win with a simple plurality of the vote. The chairman said that such a change was not on the table for tonight, though he didn’t close the door to future discussions; Morris Democrats will be using ranked-choice voting in their own endorsement convention in two weeks.
“That’s something we can consider later on,” Jones said. “The process that we’ve used was transparent, it was fair, and folks that participated seemed to feel good about it. Bottom line, if it’s not broke, I’m not looking to try to fix it.”
Proper Essex Democratic conventions are still a new phenomenon, with the first one occurring earlier this year, and the creaks showed throughout the evening. The convention was frequently delayed by confusion over voting rules, technical difficulties regarding voting itself, and interruptions (both deliberate and accidental) from county committeemembers.
An hour and a half into the convention, the 12 candidates themselves were at last given the chance to address the committeemembers for two minutes each. All talked about their own backgrounds and their priorities if elected, but many also used their two minutes to take veiled shots at Gill and, in some cases, explicitly ask their supporters to abstain rather than voting for them in order to deny Gill the party endorsement.
“This is not a reward for being from a particular county,” Bartlett said in his speech. “It’s not a vote to free up a seat on the county board. It’s not a thank-you for who someone hired, lobbied, or looked out for. It’s the most important vote you may ever cast as a member of this county committee.”
“It is clear that many of my peers have very real concerns about this process, and they believe that it does not serve the principles that we say we uphold, and I believe that we should respect that and abstain from a final decision tonight,” said Mejia in hers; Mejia had previously issued a call for all three county parties in the 11th district to remain neutral.
