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March 6, 2025Election2025: New Poll Says NJEA’s Spiller Is #6
Fairleigh Dickinson just released a new poll that shows, among the six Democratic gubernatorial candidates, state Democratic voters have more favorable views of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. Those trailing are Senate President Steve Sweeney, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, and NJEA President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller.
“This is not the race anyone was expecting a few months ago,” said Dan Cassino, a Professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the executive director of the Poll. “We had been expecting Gottheimer to do much better, and the strong showings of Fulop and Baraka in the progressive wing of the Party has left other candidates scrambling.”
Also, according to the FDU press release,
“The President of the NJEA has higher name recognition among Democrats (63 percent versus 52 percent) as well as rather higher unfavorable ratings – 16 percent versus 10 percent – than the Democratic former Mayor of Montclair despite being the same person, Sean Spiller. “One of Spiller’s biggest advantages in this race – his connection to the NJEA – also looks like something of a liability among voters,” said Cassino.”
Why would Spiller’s position as president of New Jersey powerful teacher union be a liability?
FDU’s Cassino told NJ Education Report in an email,
“I ran some extra models to look at it, and identifying him as NJEA president helps among progressives and liberals, but hurts him among moderates and older voters. Based on that, it seems like it leads him to be perceived as being farther to the left than being identified as the former mayor of Montclair, helping him (a little) with groups further to the left, and hurting him (a lot) with more centrist-oriented voters.”
What other factors could contribute to Spiller’s relatively poor showing, especially since he is funded by somewhere between $35 to $40 million courtesy of NJEA’s PACs, far more cash on hand than the other five candidates? Why are his favorable numbers stuck at 22%?
Here are some theories.
Growing awareness of the damage From COVID school closures:
NJEA spoke loudly and often in support of Gov. Phil Murphy’s extended school closures which kept students out of school, in some cases, longer than a year. While students were stuck at home, parents got a Zoom lens into classrooms and didn’t like what they saw, a view validated by recent state and national assessments that show how much ground NJ students have lost in math and reading compared to other states. Maybe voters blame NJEA — and, by extension, Spiller —for influencing Murphy’s school closing policies.
NJEA/Spiller’s insistence that NJ schools are #1 in the nation:
A sequela of the Covid closures was NJ voters’ disillusion with the quality of NJ schools. Yet according to a recent interview in InsiderNJ, Spiller holds fast to his insistence that NJ has “the number one schools in the nation.” In contrast, Baraka says, “while [NJ’s education system] may be #1 for white and Asian students, if you compare New Jersey’s Hispanic students to students in other states, we’re #9 and for Black students we’re #17. Among students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, New Jersey comes in at #25.” (N.b.: on Spiller’s website he says NJ has the #2 school system in the country.)
NJ Democrats are less “progressive” than they used to be:
As Cassino says, Spiller’s association with NJEA helps him a little with progressive and liberal voters but hurts him a lot him with centrist Democrats. And the NJ electorate is shifting towards the center. Back in 2021 Gov. Murphy beat Jack Ciattarelli by only three points. When Trump lost NJ by only five points in November, Murphy said, “a mistake you could make right now is to put your feet up and think this is just an aberration.” As NJ voters become more moderate, those identified as ardent progressives lose appeal.
Money Worries:
The average NJ property tax bill just topped $10,000, partly due to local district support. At the same time, voters are bracing for the impact of Trump’s tariffs and losing hope for interest rate cuts. NJEA has a long history of advocating for more spending. This theme may be wearing a bit thin for tax-weary voters.
Concurrently, some voters may be aware of Spiller’s huge cash advantage, manifested by all those flyers and billboards around the state touting his candidacy. (Fulop told Politico’s Matt Friedman “he’s gotten four pro-Spiller flyers” from an “independent group” [Friedman’s quotation marks] called Working New Jersey, which Sunlight Policy Center says is a Super PAC.)
Political hopefuls typically court union leaders. Even at the Republican Convention in July, Donald Trump welcomed Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to the stage for what CNN called a “stemwinder” of a speech, just short of an endorsement. And, of course, Democratic candidates have long had union leaders, especially teacher union leaders, by their sides. Will voters’ growing awareness of Spiller’s union affiliation prove a boon or a bust? It’s too early to say but NJ teachers may be wondering about their $35 million investment in Spiller’s political ambitions.
Other results of the poll include:
- Baraka and Sweeney top the others in name recognition; in Baraka’s case this has led to his highest-among-the-six favorable measures, 43%. In Sweeney’s case, it has led to the fifth lowest at 23%. (Spiller is at 22%.)
- Most Democratic voters in the state identify as liberals or progressives. Liberals prefer Sherrill and progressives prefer Baraka but Baraka has far higher unfavorable numbers.
- “Baraka is currently edging out the competition among voters on the left of the Democratic Party,” said Cassino. “If the primary electorate skews left, that’s a big advantage; if the electorate looks more like the Democratic Party as a whole, it looks better for Sherrill.”
