Brennan wins one seat in LD-32; race between Bhalla, Ramirez is too close to call
New Jersey’s 32nd legislative district, located in the heart of Jersey City and Hoboken, hosted a heated Democratic primary showdown this year between the two great political factions in Hudson County politics: one led by Jersey City Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop, the other supported by the county Democratic organization.
But in the end, at least one of the race’s two victors hails from neither faction. Katie Brennan, a housing policy expert who ran on an independent ticket unaffiliated with any larger slate, has won the Democratic primary for one of the district’s two seats, the New Jersey Globe projects.
As for the other seat, it remains too close to call for now between Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, Brennan’s running mate, and Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-Jersey City), who was allied with Fulop.
Brennan currently leads with 6,376 votes, or 19.4%; Bhalla has 6,186, or 18.8%, and Ramirez has 6,024, or 18.3%. No more votes will be counted tonight in Hudson County, so the final outcome won’t be known until at least tomorrow, though Bhalla has declared victory.
“We did it. We really did it. We just showed the whole state that the people can beat the party bosses,” Katie Brennan said in a statement on her win. “This is what democracy looks like when it’s not rigged by political machines. The status quo isn’t working for too many people here in Hudson County, and now we’re gonna fix it.”
The remaining three candidates are piled up at the bottom, though even they didn’t finish too far behind the winners. Hoboken Public Library director Jennie Pu has 4,873 votes, or 14.8%; Jersey City Councilman Yousef Saleh has 4,730 votes, or 14.4%; and Jersey City Department of Public Safety official Crystal Fonseca has 4,621 votes, or 14.1%. (Saleh was on Fulop’s slate, while Pu and Fonseca had official Hudson Democratic support.)
Hudson County’s legislative delegation got a major makeover in 2023, when a new legislative map scrambled incumbents and led to a lot of coerced retirements. Then-Assemblyman Raj Mukherji (D-Jersey City) moved up to the State Senate in the 32nd district, and Ramirez and John Allen (D-Hoboken) were elected to the district’s two Assembly seats.
But the brewing Democratic war in Hudson County quickly laid waste to that carefully selected delegation. Allen declined to run for a second term out of deference to Bhalla, his old boss, while Ramirez allied herself with Fulop rather than the county organization, prompting Hudson Democrats to scout out Pu and Fonseca for the seat.
Then Brennan – a former staffer in Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration who accused another Murphy aide of rape in 2017, leading to legislative hearings and a $1 million settlement – added her name to the field and became a wild card in the race. Brennan and Bhalla initially ran separate campaigns, but decided to join forces in March.
All six candidates ran as progressives, and the four who attended a debate hosted by the New Jersey Globe a week before the election largely agreed on the issues.
Regardless of how the final results shake out, they’re bad news for the Hudson Democratic organization, which has steadily lost control of the county’s urban core in Jersey City and Hoboken amid waves of progressive transplants moving in. Local progressive activists had tried for years to break through into county government or the state legislature – efforts that at least paid off this year.
They’re likely good news for progressive Jersey City Councilman James Solomon, a mayoral candidate from the city’s downtown who strongly supported Brennan and Bhalla.
And above all else, they represent what could become New Jersey’s new normal in a post-county line era. Without tilted ballots guiding them in how to vote, voters were able to approach the six well-qualified candidates running in the 32nd district as equals – and their votes, divided across the six candidates, show that they all made up their minds differently.