Is Steve Fulop trying to upend the NJ Democratic Party? He certainly wouldn't mind | Stile

What is wrong with Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop these days?

This is a time when the 2025 candidate for governor should be making allies out of establishment leaders, not enemies. On the other side of the aisle, Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, with his steady stream of grip-and-grin photos on Instagram, seems to be running a more predictable playbook that relies on goodwill and outreach.

Fulop, the 47-year-old ex-Marine and investment banker, on the other hand, seems to be going out of his way to antagonize the high council of elders who rule the New Jersey Democratic Party.

He went from endorsing first lady Tammy Murphy’s campaign for the U.S. Senate to criticizing the effort and then switching his support to her chief rival — and now the Democrats' presumptive nominee — Rep. Andy Kim.

He teamed up with Gov. Phil Murphy — they seemed like BFFs in their joint aspiration to open the proposed Centre Pompidou outpost in Jersey City. Now Fulop and Murphy are locked in a very public and increasingly bitter dispute, with the mayor accusing the governor of pulling the plug on the project in retaliation for Fulop’s endorsement switch.

It was just last fall that Fulop was a great cheerleader for the Democratic campaign for the Assembly, publicly praising the party patroons of Middlesex County — citing county Democratic Chairman Kevin McCabe in a shoutout and vowing to help raise money for the campaign.

But last month, Fulop condemned the Middlesex County party as a descendant of the machine corruption wielded by legendary Jersey City Mayor Frank “I am the Boss” Hague. The cheerleader now has become a reformer — and a scold.

Fulop brushed aside suggestions that rank opportunism — putting his ambition ahead of party goals — led him to rail against the Middlesex machine last month amid the court fight over the use of the county line ballot design, a little-known election feature that has sustained political bosses' power in New Jersey for decades.

There is nothing inconsistent, he says, in raising money to help Democratic candidates duel the Republican Party of Donald Trump in the November election. Meanwhile, Fulop, with unabashed criticism, is lending his voice to a chorus of grassroots activists seeking to change a system that has sustained Democratic Party power in Trenton for nearly two decades.

And besides, he argues, it’s not as if he has always been the most beloved figure in Democratic Party circles since he rose from the City Council to the mayor’s perch in 2013.

“I don’t think that I've ever, politically speaking, been entirely embraced by the county organizations," he said in an interview in a café next to City Hall one day last week.

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Yet this isn’t another one of Fulop’s typical skirmishes with the party machinery and his off-again, on-again allies in Hudson County. He is gambling that the path to power can be found by riding full-speed down the lane of the outsider.

As his rivals for governor court the insiders' endorsements, money and machinery, Fulop is courting the grassroots activists and Democratic Party voters who propelled Kim’s successful buck-the-machine candidacy for the Senate.

Not only did Kim dispatch Tammy Murphy despite seemingly insurmountable odds, but his long-shot lawsuit struck down the county line, a step that loosened the grip of machine power and gave outsiders a fighting chance to compete in primaries.

Kim recognized that the energy and momentum of the party percolated outside the clubhouse door. His campaign tapped long-simmering disgust with imperious Democratic leadership. He ignited a revolt. He also proved that operating outside the norms — and occasionally taking shots at the establishment leaders who snubbed him — is a path to power. And now Fulop is positioning himself as an heir to Kim, observers say.

“I think he sees himself as making a play for the progressives and the good government groups," said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Center for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “Can I be the beneficiary of the Andy Kim movement? Can I keep the band together?”

Fulop dismissed suggestions that he’s simply following in Kim’s footsteps, noting that he announced nearly a year ago his intention to create a political operation separate from the traditional Democratic Party establishment.

That announcement was followed up with the creation of groups of volunteers in most counties who get from him routine updates on strategy, policy and organizing through monthly Zoom calls and frequent updates on the Basecamp app.

It is that input from voters and volunteers — Fulop now counts 500 who have signed on to his outreach — that first signaled trouble with Tammy Murphy’s campaign. It was his own internal Greek chorus that led him to publicly call for abolishing party lines last October, before Kim formally filed his lawsuit — back when the idea of the line being replaced by a block ballot design seemed like the pipe dream of academics and good government advocates.

“Andy has certainly made us recognize that we're on the right path," Fulop said. “What he was able to achieve with the grassroots support is pretty significant. But I think that we were on a course of building the structure regardless.”

Some insiders scoff at Fulop’s self-casting as what one party leader derisively called “the patron saint” of the anti-line coalition, arguing that he's been very much the player of the insider, transactional Jersey brand of politics. Fulop is taking this posture, they say,because he has little choice. Other rivals, like Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, would certainly have the competitive edge in the Democratic-rich counties in North Jersey.

Former Senate President Stephen Sweeney, who is also planning a bid for the nomination, would have a distinct advantage in South Jersey. And after years of infighting in Hudson, it's not entirely clear that Fulop can count on his home base for support. So the only thing left to do is come out swinging for the fences as an outsider.

“He has nowhere else to go," one longtime Democratic operative told me.

Can Fulop's new approach fend off county bosses?

Embracing the role as the defiant outsider has allowed Fulop to flout the standard rules of campaign conduct. A Democratic candidate for governor can normally be expected to seek the support of an outgoing two-term governor who remains fairly popular with voters.

Fulop has found more use for Murphy as a foil. Much of the anger that fueled Kim’s rise was directed at the governor, who was viewed by many as stacking the deck for his wife’s candidacy. Murphy rejected the charge of nepotism, but the grassroots activists — long shut out by party leaders — scoffed.

Fulop denies he has made the Murphys his useful political piñata as part of his appeal to the grassroots. But he says at times he intends to criticize Murphy “where we can say that he had not done a good job."

“I think that’s fair," he continued. “It's part of a campaign process, because if I’m ultimately making my case to the voters and why I’m qualified … it's just important to do. Otherwise, why am I running?”

Fulop has said he intends to spend $10 million to recruit and vet independent slates of down-ballot candidates to run for in New Jersey's 2025 cycle. So far, he has compiled a spreadsheet of some 90 names of potential running mates. He says at least one incumbent legislator has expressed interest but wanted to meet in secret. He did not share the lawmaker’s name.

Looming over this strategy, though, is a sense that the party leadership may mobilize and find a way to reassert its power — despite the court ruling that struck down the line. Few believe that Democratic county bosses will quietly retreat and surrender power quickly. That concern was underscored last week with the release of the Essex County primary ballot, which was redesigned to conform to the federal court’s order for a block ballot design.

But the design arrayed the new block format to create an effective horizontal line of candidates endorsed by the Essex County Democratic Organization. It was the old line dressed up in a new format. It was also a reminder that change may take longer than Fulop or any other self-styled reformer may believe.

Fulop acknowledged the “real possibility” of the old guard flexing its muscle, but added, “I also told myself that I am not going to look back on this campaign in 2025 and say I should have done differently.”

Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stile@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Steve Fulop looks to further disrupt the NJ Democratic Party