PASSAIC COUNTY, New Jersey — Both candidates in the New Jersey governor’s race have something to prove here in Passaic. It’s ground zero for the inroads President Donald Trump made with Latino voters — Trump won this plurality-Latino county last year, the first GOP presidential candidate to do so in decades — and it offers the first big litmus test of whether the Latino shift toward the GOP in 2024 will stick without Trump on the ballot.
That is, if Latino voters show up.
With just days left until Election Day, there are concerns on the ground that Democrat Mikie Sherrill’s and Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s campaigns have not done enough to reach the hyperlocal and swingy communities of Latinos in this northern pocket of New Jersey. Strategists and local leaders told POLITICO they’ve witnessed a lack of enthusiasm in Passaic County, where campaign messaging and activation around Latino voters is falling flat.
“It’s not as proactive as they needed to be,” said a Democratic strategist with roots in Passaic, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Around Passaic, there’s a resounding recognition among Latino leaders and some organizers that this bellwether bloc of voters may not vote this year. Latino voters, like other minority groups, historically have lower levels of engagement in off-year elections.
“I’m asking you, please, do not stay home,” Passaic Mayor Hector Lora told a crowd of Sherrill voters at a campaign rally in Paterson last Sunday. “New Jersey is watching Passaic County, and the nation is watching New Jersey,” Christine Tiseo, a local councilmember, said at the same rally.
The signs of lagging enthusiasm are evident on the ground. A trip up Main Avenue, which cuts through the city of Passaic heading into Clifton and Paterson, is devoid of campaign postings or early voting signs. The main library in Clifton, which serves as an early voting site, has been under construction for months and is adorned with large black-and-white signs signaling its temporary closure. Prospective early voters have to make their way around the back of the building to find the entrance available to them.
“How the hell do you expect these people to vote!” Jeannette Mestre, a Clifton voter, told POLITICO on the sidelines of Sherrill’s event.
The most noticeable sign of life from either campaign during the past week came by way of canvassers from Make the Road New Jersey, who’ve been in the city of Passaic for months campaigning for Sherrill and speaking to thousands of residents to remind them to vote. During their third round of door-knocking Thursday in Passaic — which Trump carried with 52 percent last year — two canvassers noted the lack of visibility for either campaign in the neighborhood.
“It’s like they’re literally trying to get people not to vote,” said Lori Gonzalez, a volunteer with Make the Road. She estimated that of 60 voters her group connects with, about 40 will stay home. Knocking on doors of midsize residential buildings in Passaic on Thursday in the pouring rain, a consistent trend emerged: The decided voters — usually younger, all who have already prepared to vote — said they’re going for Sherrill. But many were unsure, and most of the others said they weren’t planning to hit the polls.
That trend is also playing out across the area: Passaic County’s early voting numbers are lagging behind, with Democratic turnout at 13.4 percent — six points below the state average, with a similar lagging trend for mail-in ballots. It’s the manifestation of anxieties ruminating within Latino strategists and local politicians that the community just hasn’t been rallied or motivated enough to vote.
“We fought a good fight for the primary, but now I see an apathy,” a local Democratic leader said about Sherrill’s campaign. “I would have wished to have seen more done in the Latino communities — you know where people are feeling like, ‘Wow, they care.’ And I believe that they care, but I think the campaign — I don’t think it’s making sure. [Sherrill’s] just out there, just going from space to space, and it’s a big state.”
Democrats’ theory of the case is that many voters in Latino strongholds like Passaic County had election fatigue in 2024; the right messaging didn’t reach them, so they chose Trump as a change agent who would help their pocketbooks or they simply stayed home. Winning Passaic back would not only chip away at Republicans’ gains, but also provide Democrats a battle-tested message to take into midterms.
Republicans are betting that their success with Latino voters last year wasn’t just a Trump effect, but rather a budding realignment of Latinos and working-class voters nationwide with whom they share values. Latinos are “waking up to the fact that the current policies have failed us, but also, the Democratic Party has been taking them for granted,” Ciattarelli told POLITICO on his tour bus after his rally in Clifton last Saturday.
Ciattarelli’s campaign has spotlighted him at practically every Latino parade in the state, connecting with Latino churches and small-business owners, said Kennith Gonzalez, who leads the campaign’s Hispanic outreach. Sherrill’s campaign has focused on connecting with local Latino leaders and groups, who can channel her message into their communities, campaign vice chair Patricia Campos-Medina said.
The problem is, with either approach, there’s people who fall through the cracks, according to Rafael Collazo, the executive director of the UnidosUS Action PAC, one of multiple groups supporting Sherrill and working to reach Latino voters across the state. “It’s hard to put a number on it, but a significant amount of Latino voters aren’t really touched by those networks on either side,” he told POLITICO.
Despite the millions of dollars in investments in Spanish ads and media outreach, the strategists and local leaders said Sherrill’s campaign has not spent enough time effectively connecting with hyperlocal Latino communities. A Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly said Sherrill’s running a suburban campaign with Latinos: “It’s like they took the strategy that you apply to the suburbs and try to take it statewide.” That comes amid general concerns in the final weeks about the enthusiasm surrounding Sherrill’s campaign, as POLITICO has previously reported.
Immigration is also bubbling as a flashpoint. Of the Passaic residents who spoke with Playbook about the election, all named immigration — ICE raids and deportations, more specifically — as their chief concern. The county is around 42 percent Latino, but cities like Passaic are up to 70 percent Latino, immigrant-dominated areas with some of the biggest concentrations of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Peruvians anywhere in the U.S. Ciattarelli has toed a delicate line by aligning himself with MAGA while softening on some immigration issues, but recent polling suggests that Trump’s sway with Latino voters generally is dropping.
“It’s the first meaningful temperature check since the last election,” Carlos Odio, a Latino analyst and pollster with Equis Research, told POLITICO. “And it’s fitting that it be here, because this is where you saw the biggest shifts from ’20 to ’24.”
Canvassing continues as the final days approach. Ciattarelli’s campaign is knocking doors this weekend in Paterson and nearby Woodbridge, while Make the Road said it’ll keep going for Sherrill in Passaic through Tuesday. Sherrill was scheduled for a get-out-the-vote rally in Clifton on Saturday.
But the campaigns will find out if they walked the walk with Latino voters on Tuesday. Sherrill, for her part, is talking the talk, at least. In a high school gymnasium in Paterson last Sunday, surrounded by Latinos volunteering for her campaign, Sherrill made a heartfelt plea to the community.
“Necesito su voto, familia,” she told the crowd in Spanish: I need your vote.
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