NEWARK -- On Tuesday, Mayor Cory Booker will likely be re-elected to a second term, but few people outside the state’s largest city are even aware a campaign is taking place. This year, the usual clamor of city politics has been largely muted. Unlike the 2006 election, there have been no raucous debates, no battling TV ads, minimal mud...
(L to T) Yvonne Garrett-Moore, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Clifford Minor and Mirna L. White get ready for a debate at a public forum broadcast live on Cablevisions' Meet the Leaders Newark, in this photo taken earlier this week.
NEWARK -- On Tuesday, Mayor Cory Booker will likely be re-elected to a second term, but few people outside the state’s largest city are even aware a campaign is taking place. This year, the usual clamor of city politics has been largely muted.
Unlike the 2006 election, there have been no raucous debates, no battling TV ads, minimal mud slinging and no street fights.
Booker, the former punchy underdog who won four years ago with 72 percent of the vote, has largely avoided public confrontations. Instead, he has spent about $5.5 million on a handful of glossy television ads, and a slew of posters and lawn signs.
His chief challenger, Clifford Minor, a soft-spoken former Essex County prosecutor, is running at the urging of his longtime friend, state Sen. Ronald Rice. He has shown up at debates, held coffee klatches and printed lawn signs and mailers.
When the campaign spending of the two other mayoral candidates — Yvonne Garrett Moore and Mirna White — are combined with Minor’s $240,000, the three have spent less than $300,000 on the campaign.
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The political stakes are indeed high for Booker, who, at some point, is expected to seek higher office. If he does not post a significant margin of victory on Tuesday, it could affect his credibility as a statewide candidate.
If Booker were to somehow lose, it would be a stunning upset and the politician who defeats him would be credited with taking down one of the state’s biggest political brands.
Booker gained national fame in 2002 with an unlikely bid to unseat then four-term incumbent Mayor Sharpe James. The Academy Award nominated documentary "Street Fight" chronicled how Booker, with $1.5 million, mounted a grassroots insurgency that lost out by a scant 3,500 votes to James, who had raised $2.7 million.
Four years later, under the specter of a federal indictment, James bowed out at the last minute and Booker, who had put together a $6 million war chest, sailed to victory over Rice who had only $178,000 and 45 days to mount a campaign.
Now, Booker has become the establishment candidate. The 41-year-old former attorney and Rhodes Scholar, has raised $7.5 million, with about half coming from outside Newark from stars like Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg.
He has declined all but one debate, opting instead to tout his achievements — a 21 percent drop in crime, rehabilitated parks and new jobs provided by a handful of new businesses — on fliers and TV ads that run 2,000 times a week on CNN and elsewhere.
Challengers see Booker’s tenure differently.
They cite layoffs and furloughs of city workers, a skyrocketing unemployment rate, persistent crime, a polarizing police director and lack of development outside of downtown, his Bergen County roots and his perceived lack of engagement in the city.
"I’m dissatisfied with what he’s done," Minor, 67, said. "For the most part, I believe that he has not had a real connection with the residents."
Booker campaign manager Pablo Fonseca said they’re not taking a win for granted, and are mobilizing roughly 2,000 troops for Election Day and in certain areas will be monitoring get-out-the-vote efforts in real time by giving campaign workers iPhones.
"We’re confident, but we’re in the battle of our lives," said Fonseca.
Booker is expected to do well among Hispanics in the North and East wards who have grown to 32.5 percent of the population, according to U.S. Census estimates.
Minor, who has about 500 volunteers to work the streets on Election Day, is setting his sites on old-guard James supporters, and African-American voters in the Central, South and West wards who have never welcomed Booker.
According to Price, though, Minor’s focus on a return to the Newark of old, could be a mistake.
"We will never return to an insular, siloed city that will look askance at new talent from the outside," Price said. "Newark is increasingly driven by people guided to come here because of Cory Booker and because of the new Newark."