Newark’s Voters Choose New Mayor and New Path

Councilman Ras Baraka, the fiery scion of a militant poet, was elected mayor of Newark on Tuesday, signaling a likely shift in the direction that #NewJersey’s largest city had embarked upon for most of the last decade.

Mr. Baraka rebuffed a spirited late surge from a political newcomer, Shavar Jeffries, a law professor with an improbable Horatio Alger-like life story, in a bitter contest marred by incendiary rhetoric, arrests and charges of vandalism. With 96 percent of the precincts reporting, Mr. Baraka was leading with about 54 percent of the vote, compared with 46 percent for Mr. Jeffries, according to unofficial results.

“We are the mayor!” Mr. Baraka shouted at his victory party, as a six-piece funk band played an original song with the refrain, “Who did we vote for? Raaaaas Baraka.” Mr. Baraka added, “The people of Newark are not for sale.”

Mayor-elect Ras Baraka celebrates his win. Credit Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

 At Mr. Jeffries’ election-night party, by contrast, the subdued candidate, flanked by his family, praised Mr. Baraka’s “deep and abiding love” for Newark, adding: “The time for fighting is over.”

Shavar Jeffries left the voting booth at the Nellie Grier Senior Center on Tuesday with his son, Kaleb, 9. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times

The race between the two Democrats was expected to be Newark’s most expensive election ever. Mr. Jeffries enjoyed a sizable financial advantage thanks to outside groups, while Mr. Baraka relied on his family’s name and fervent union support, and he tapped into misgivings about the previous mayor.

That mayor, of course, was Cory A. Booker, who won the first of two terms in 2006 as a fresh reformer. Yet while Mr. Booker unquestionably raised the profile of his adopted city, attracting hundreds of millions of dollars, he never could erase lingering suspicions among some of Newark’s power brokers that he was an outsider.

Mr. Booker left office last year after winning election to the United States Senate. When an interim mayor, Luis A. Quintana, indicated that he was not running for office, the dynamics were set for what some viewed as a referendum on Mr. Booker, as well as a watershed moment for the future.

“Baraka’s win suggests that the Booker years didn’t vanquish the old guard,” said Andra Gillespie, a professor at Emory University and author of “The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark and Post-Racial America.”

The new mayor has the daunting task of trying to tame a long list of problems. The city has its highest murder rate in 24 years, and its unemployment rate is 13 percent. There is a $93 million budget deficit, and the state has warned that it may take over the city’s rickety finances.

Newark’s schools, which have been under state control for two decades, remain a fiercely contested topic. Indeed, under Mr. Booker, the city became a laboratory for the education reform movement. And one of the most contentious issues in the mayor’s race was a recent school reorganization plan, One Newark, which was pummeled by Mr. Baraka’s supporters.

Another source of contention was the high level of spending in the nonpartisan race, which had exceeded $3.5 million as of last week. Mr. Jeffries, in particular, had been bolstered by Wall Street interests usually associated with charter-school battles — and often aligned, incidentally, with Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican — as well as the two most powerful Democratic power brokers in the state, George E. Norcross of South Jersey and Joseph DiVincenzo, the Essex County executive.

Mr. Jeffries, 39, a law professor at Seton Hall and a former assistant state attorney general, had been viewed as the heir to Mr. Booker’s “New Newark,” where a fifth of the city’s children go to charter schools and a Whole Foods supermarket is taking root in a downtown building.

Ras Baraka wrote his name in the voting directory at a polling site on Tuesday. Credit Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Like Mr. Booker, Mr. Jeffries aggressively courted Hispanic voters, who make up a third of the city’s residents.

Mr. Baraka, 44, benefited from high name recognition. His father, Amiri Baraka, who died in January, was a leader of Newark’s cultural and political life after the riots of 1967. The younger Mr. Baraka’s resume included stints as a former deputy mayor under Sharpe James, principal of Central High School and, since 2010, a councilman. He had the backing of most labor unions and the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, and appealed to deep-rooted suspicions of outsiders with slogans like “Believe in Newark” and “When I become mayor, we all become #mayor.”

In the end, many longtime residents called the election between the Democrats the most fractious they could recall, with regular confrontations and more allegations of dirty campaigning than even Mr. Booker’s unsuccessful 2002 race against Mr. James, chronicled in a documentary called “Street Fight.”

Election Day was no exception, with lawyers for both sides alleging voter intimidation at the polls.

As expected, Mr. Jeffries won big in the city’s North Ward, one of five in the city. Mr. Baraka, though, won a commanding victory in the South Ward, where both men live but which has long been the Baraka family’s base of support. 

Mr. Jeffries had hoped that support from another South Ward family, that of the late United States Representative Donald Payne, would help him minimize Mr. Baraka’s margin there. Throughout the campaign, he had argued that Mr. Baraka, the ward’s councilman, had failed to reduce crime, noting that murders have risen 70 percent since he took office four years ago. But in the end, Mr. Baraka’s popular support proved insurmountable.

“Not even a multimillion-dollar advertising blitz could convince Newark voters to buy into Wall Street’s corporate agenda for education,” said Analilia Mejia, the executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance.

In a statement, Mr. Booker, who was in Washington, congratulated Mr. Baraka, and said, “I look forward to fully supporting him as he steps up to lead Newark, deal with our city’s challenges and continue to move our city into a brighter and better future.”

Before the polls closed, though, Mr. Booker did not mention the race. A prolific user of social media, he wrote or sent about 50 messages on Twitter on Tuesday, many of which highlighted his enthusiasm for New Jersey’s small businesses, though he also wished the actress Lena Dunham happy birthday.

“Need to go preside on the Senate floor now,” he wrote at one point. “Catch me on C-Span.

Source: New York Times