Welcome to the Thursday, April 17, 2025, Brew.
By: Lara Bonatesta
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- New Jersey to see most contested primaries, fewest open seats since 2011
- A look at universal school choice in rural school districts
- Oakland holds first mayoral election since historic recall, 16 and 17-year-olds vote for the first time in Newark Public Schools Board election
New Jersey has the most contested primaries, fewest open seats since 2011
All 80 seats in the New Jersey General Assembly are up for election this year, and there are 29 contested primaries on June 10, eight more than the last regular elections in 2023. This is the most contested primaries since at least 2011, driven by the most contested Democratic Party primaries in that time (22).
Today, let’s look at four competitiveness factors in New Jersey’s state legislative primaries: the number of contested primaries, incumbents facing primaries, candidates running, and open seats.
The numbers
There are 22 contested Democratic primaries, 83% more than the 12 Democratic primaries in 2023. There are seven contested Republican primaries, down 22% from the nine Republican primaries in 2023.
More incumbents are facing primaries in 2025 than in any cycle since we began this research in 2011.
Thirty-three incumbents face primaries this year, representing 43% of the 76 incumbents running for re-election. This is a new high, topping the previous mark set in 2019 when 33% of incumbents ran in contested primaries. Twenty-nine of the contested incumbents are Democrats, more than in any year since at least 2011. Four contested incumbents are Republicans. From 2011 to 2023, the average number of contested Republican incumbents was nearly 7.
There are 33 contested incumbents and 29 contested primaries because each district has two Assembly seats. This means two incumbents can run in a single primary. On primary election day, voters can cast up to two votes for Assembly candidates, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election.
A total of 202 candidates are running in the primaries, including 119 Democrats and 83 Republicans. Four seats are open. That ties 2019 for the fewest open seats since 2011. The average number of open seats each cycle since 2011 was 12.
The context
As we mentioned in our March 10 edition of the Daily Brew, New Jerseyans’ primary ballots will look different this year. That’s because this is the first primary without the state’s county-line ballot design.
As Politico’s Matthew Friedman said in a February episode of Ballotpedia’s On the Ballot, most jurisdictions in the U.S. use an office block ballot design.
New Jersey had traditionally taken a different approach.
Friedman said, “In the vast majority of counties, especially the ones with a lot of people in them, New Jersey political parties would endorse a candidate…after they endorse this candidate, when it comes to the primary ballot, the way it was structured is there’s a column or a row where you start with the highest office, and you go to the lowest office, and you could just check that down.”
On March 6, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed A5116/S4142 into law, eliminating the county-line system and requiring county clerks to use an office block ballot design that groups candidates by the office they are running for.
New Jersey is also electing a new governor this year. There are six candidates running in the Democratic primary and five running in the Republican primary. Murphy is term-limited.
In an interview with New Jersey Monitor, Director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll, Dan Cassino, said, “The fact there’s a governor on the ballot means there’s more money floating around, and there is more interest in the election overall, and that money does matter. The fact that there are higher profile candidates out there raising money, some of that money leaks down.”
New Jersey has had a Democratic trifecta since the party gained control of the governor’s office in 2018. Democrats currently have a 25-15 majority in the Senate and a 52-28 majority in the General Assembly.
New Jersey is one of two states – the other being Virginia – holding elections for their respective state Houses in 2025. Elections in those two chambers represent 180 of the country’s 7,386 state legislative seats (2.4%). There are 99 state legislative chambers in the country.
Click here to learn more about state legislative primary competitiveness in 2025.
A look at universal school choice in rural school districts
A version of this story appeared on April 9 in Ballotpedia’s Hall Pass. Click here to sign up.
Since 2022, at least 15 states have adopted universal school choice programs. As of April 2025, 17 states also have limited or non-universal school choice programs, and another 18 states do not have any private school choice programs. Those policies provide taxpayer funding to families for private educational expenses, such as private school tuition or homeschooling textbooks.
Click here to learn more about the different types of school choice programs and to see our overview of universal school choice programs across all 50 states.
As these programs become more common around the country, one area that has been the subject of political debate is the effect of universal school choice programs on rural school districts. We took a closer look at this debate, including the data, policy trends, and common arguments for and against universal school choice, in our March 10 episode of On the Ballot.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the U.S. Census, 45% of public school districts across the U.S. are classified as rural. Legislators from 2,945 different legislative districts represent these school districts.
- Most of those rural legislative districts (1,936, or 66%) are in states without universal school choice.
- 783 rural legislative districts are in Republican trifecta states without universal school choice.
- 631 rural legislative districts are in Democratic trifecta states without universal school choice.
- 589 rural legislative districts were in divided government states without universal school choice.
Debates over how private school choice programs affect rural districts can be complex. That’s why Ballotpedia just launched its new resource portal on the effect of school choice on rural school districts and communities. We announced this portal in last week’s edition of Hall Pass, our weekly newsletter dedicated to school board politics and education policy. Click here to sign up.
As part of the portal, Ballotpedia collected vote data on private school choice legislation in Republican trifecta states that, as of January 2025, did not have universal private school choice policies. We analyzed vote history across party affiliation and between legislators representing at least one rural school district and those without any rural school districts in their districts. We also looked at the number of legislative districts in each state containing at least one rural school district and compiled a list of legislators representing those districts.
Currently, that analysis includes four states. Click here to stay tuned as we expand it to additional states, and click on each state’s name to see its full analysis.
Click here to learn more on our rural school choice portal.
Oakland holds first mayoral election since historic recall, 16 and 17-year-olds vote for the first time in Newark Public Schools Board election
Here’s a look at some election results from Tuesday.
Oakland:
Nine candidates ran in the nonpartisan special election for mayor of Oakland, California. As of 9:25 p.m. PT on April 15, the race was still too close to call. According to the unofficial results, Loren Taylor was in the lead after the initial vote tally with about 23,362 votes (48.2%) to Barbara Lee’s 22,142 votes (45.7%), a margin of 1,220 votes.
Oakland uses ranked-choice voting (RCV), which asks voters to rank candidates by preference on their ballots. Click here to learn more about that process.
This was the first election since voters recalled former mayor Sheng Thao on Nov. 5, 2024 – the first time a mayor was recalled in the city’s history. See our coverage of that recall campaign here.
Interim mayor Kevin Jenkins did not run for re-election.
To see our full coverage of the Oakland mayoral election, click here.
Newark:
As of 9:17 p.m. ET on April 15, incumbent Kanileah Anderson, Louis Maisonave, Jr., and David Daughety led in the nonpartisan general election against eight other candidates. According to the unofficial preliminary results published by the Essex County Clerk, which do not include mail-in ballots, Anderson has received 2,674 votes (22.1%), Maisonave, Jr. received 2,248 votes (18.6%), and Daughety received 2,290 votes (18.9%).
Anderson, Maisonave, Jr., and Daughety all ran on the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate, which, according to Chalkbeat Newark’s Jessie Gómez, has won every Newark school board election since 2016. As of April 2025, all nine current board members were elected running on the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate.
Ade’Kamil Kelly, Shana Melius, and Nathanael Barthelemy ran on the “Prioritizing Newark’s Children” slate.
Five candidates– Elaine Asyah Aquil, DeWayne Bush, Latoya Jackson, Yolanda Johnson, and Jordy Nivar – ran independently.
This was the first school board election since the Newark City Council voted in January 2024 to lower the voting age for local school board elections. According to § 21:1-2 of the Newark city charter, any citizen who is at least 16 or will be 16 on election day is eligible to vote in school board elections.
As we mentioned last year when we covered the city council’s decision in Hall Pass and again when we previewed this election in our April 7 edition of the Daily Brew – this is not the first time a municipality has lowered the voting age in local elections. In 2013, Takoma Park, Maryland, became the first municipality in the country to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in city elections. The change did not include school board elections, which are run by Montgomery County, Maryland. At least 10 other municipalities have also lowered the voting age for some elections.
To see our full coverage of the Newark school board election, click here.