The Democratic primary is usually a cakewalk for Rep. Bill Pascrell, who has been in Congress for more than 25 years.
But this year, he faces a rare competitive race in his Passaic County district — with a challenger seizing on Pascrell’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and without the help of a New Jersey ballot system that gives establishment candidates a huge advantage.
Even with strong support from Arabs and Muslims, Khairullah likely would not have been able to mount as strong a challenge to Pascrell without a federal court ruling in March that barred Democratic primary ballots from using New Jersey’s century-old ballot system called “the county line.”
The system groups candidates running on tickets into single lines or columns, meaning that the many candidates endorsed by county political organizations appear together with ticket-leaders like President Joe Biden. Candidates running alone or on smaller slates usually appear further off to the right or down the ballot, outside of the large groupings that signal to voters that they’re the legitimate party candidates. Research by Rutgers University professor Julia Sass Rubin shows the preferential ballot placement gives candidates an advantage that is difficult to beat.
Democratic County Committees in Hudson, Passaic and Bergen counties all endorsed Pascrell, which would have granted him the county line placement. Now, he and Khairullah will appear together in one area of the ballot just for congressional candidates, instead of in slates with runningmates.
Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics and director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll, said the absence of a county line will help Khairullah. But he said he doesn’t think it will be enough to beat the ever-popular Pascrell, who won 10 of 12 elections with more than 61% of the vote.