Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver, who two days ago won a special 10th district Democratic primary for the unexpired term of the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark), was chosen at a Democratic convention tonight as the party’s nominee for the November general election as well.
At a meeting of party leaders and Democratic county committee members from Essex, Union, and Hudson Counties tonight in Newark, McIver received 337 votes, out of 426 total (79%).
Linden Mayor Derek Armstead finished second with 43 votes, followed Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker (D-Jersey City) with 18 and former Assemblyman Craig Stanley with 13. Former Payne staffer Shana Melius finished fifth with 5 votes, followed by teacher John Flora (6) and community college professor Sheila Montague (4).
McIver’s easy win was widely anticipated, both because she had already won the support of the 10th district’s voters on Tuesday and because she had the strong support of many of the district’s top Democratic leaders, including Essex County Democratic Chairman LeRoy Jones and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
Since the district is overwhelmingly Democratic, McIver is near-certain to win both the September special election and the regularly scheduled November general election in landslides against Republican Carmen Bucco.
When Payne died in April following a heart attack, Gov. Phil Murphy scheduled a special election to fill his unexpired term, but it was too late to remove his name from the regular June primary ballot. After Payne posthumously won the primary uncontested, his spot on the general election ballot was then declared vacant, triggering this evening’s special convention to decide on a replacement.
In theory, the convention delegates were under no obligation to choose the same candidate as the one who won the primary two days ago. But because party leaders were already strongly supportive of McIver, who prevailed in the 11-candidate primary with 47% of the vote, there was little doubt at the convention about who would be chosen.
Five candidates who ran in that primary – former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks, state economic development official Darryl Godfrey, small businesswoman Alberta Gordon, activist Debra Salters, and law professor Eugene Mazo – didn’t successfully file to run at tonight’s convention. If any of those candidates had won the primary, they would have been unable to seek the nomination for a full term, and been limited to just a few months in office.
Stanley, meanwhile, didn’t run in the primary and limited his candidacy to just tonight’s convention. The former assemblyman, who last held elected office in 2008, has now been handed his third loss in just over a year, after two consecutive failed bids for the State Assembly in 2023.
McIver will next go before voters on September 18 to fill the remainder of Payne’s term. Assuming she wins – a safe bet in the majority-Black district – she’ll be the eighth woman to represent New Jersey in Congress, and the second woman of color; it will also mark the first time New Jersey has ever had three women in its congressional delegation at once.