Review the voting and mayoral records of Democrats running for N.J. governor in 2025

Six Democratic candidates are running for New Jersey governor in the 2025 primary election, scheduled for Jun. 10. The candidates chosen to represent both Democratic and Republican parties will have their name appear on the November general election ballot along with any Independent candidates running.

Registered Democratic Party voters outnumber registered Republican or Independent voters by more than 825,000, according to state data from May 2025. And their political views vary more widely.

REGISTER TO VOTE: The last day to register for the 2025 primary is May 20

The Jersey Bee compiled voting and mayoral records of five Democratic candidate to show how they most recently acted on policies affecting people’s basic needs, including food, housing, water, recreation, public transportation, work and wages, and healthcare.

This was after New Jersey voters expressed how difficult it is to learn about candidates’ records.

The Democratic candidates running in the 2025 gubernatorial race included in this resource are:

• Ras Baraka, Newark mayor.
• Steven Fulop, Jersey City mayor.
• Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Congressman for New Jersey’s 5th District.
• Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Congresswoman for New Jersey’s 11th District.
• Stephen Sweeney, former State Senate President and State Senator.

LEARN MORE: N.J. 2025 governor candidates answer questions on segregation and equity

Sean Spiller, president of the New Jersey Education Association and former mayor of Montclair, is also a Democratic primary candidate but not included in this data because of research limitations.

Each candidate has made decisions about laws and policies in New Jersey that shape how people live. Mayors in Newark and Jersey City do not vote on local laws, but they can approve and veto legislation. Their city councils have the power to reject the mayor’s veto by a majority vote.

JUMP TO THE DATA: Skip our methodology and explore candidate records below

How we gathered data

We relied on municipal and state government websites that show legislative decisions made by each candidate. Federal office holder data was retrieved from VoteSmart.org. There was no accessible legislative archive for Montclair, where Sean Spiller served as mayor from 2020-2024. Governmental decisions made under Spiller’s administration are not included in this dataset.

Our goal was to learn how candidates responded to laws, proposals, and other policies that shaped the public’s access to basic needs. We identified seven topics and related keywords and searched for information about these topics:

• Food.
• Healthcare.
• Housing.
• Public transportation.
• Recreation.
• Water.
• Work and wages.

We narrowed our search to decisions made within the candidate’s most recent year in office. Most of the data represents actions taken between Apr. 10, 2024 and Apr 10, 2025. Sweeney’s records are from Jan. 11, 2021 to Jan. 10, 2022, his most recent year in office. 

The records of the Fulop and Baraka administrations were categorized manually based on keyword searches through Jersey City and Newark legislative websites. Sweeney’s record in the N.J. Senate and Sherrill and Gottheimer’s records in Congress were categorized using AI tools that identified issue patterns, similar to human review.

2025 N.J. Democratic candidate records

This data was collected from public sources, including state and municipal legislative records and VoteSmart.org. It does not include all of the actions taken by candidates during the time period included, only specific issue areas.

Categorization was done using a mix of human review and automation. We spot-checked the data, but not every category has been reviewed line by line. Contact us if you see an error in the data.

Click here to view this data in a larger window.

Help us improve this resource

Gathering and reviewing data from government websites can result in information gaps or other issues with the data. Help The Jersey Bee improve this resource by volunteering your expertise on the subject and sharing errors you notice. Contact us here or email connect@jerseybee.org.