The final results of Newark’s May 10 non-partisan municipal election were certified by the city clerk on Thursday, officially confirming Mayor Ras Baraka’s landslide re-election and the city council candidates who will compete for three ward seats in runoff races on June 14.
Results certified by Newark City Clerk Kenneth Louis put Baraka’s vote total at 14,777, or 82.55% of the 17,899 votes cast. Baraka’s challenger, Sheila Montague, received 3,007 votes. There were a total of 115 write-in ballots cast.
The figures include votes cast at polling places and mail-in, provisional and emergency ballots.
“That’s the final results,” Louis said Thursday.
Baraka, who will be sworn in to his third 4-year term in July, won by an even bigger margin than the 77% of the vote he received in his first re-election in 2018. Voters initially elected him with 54% of the vote in 2014.
Baraka led a slate that also included nine city council candidates. Six who collected a majority of the votes cast on May 10 and won their seats outright; two are headed for runoffs in the South and West wards; and one was the low vote-getter of four East Ward candidates and is out of the running.
The winners included all four at-large council candidates, who ran unopposed: Luis Quintana, Louise Scott-Rountree, Carlos Gonzalez, and C. Lawrence Crump. North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, who Baraka backed, also was unopposed and won re-election to his seat. Baraka’s Central Ward candidate, Councilwoman LaMonica McIver, won with 64.5% of the vote.
The West Ward runoff pits Durpé Kelly, a hip-hop recording artist backed by Baraka who took in 37.96% of the vote, against a former deputy state community affairs commissioner, Chigozie Onyema, who pulled 28.99%.
In the South Ward, Baraka-backed candidate Patrick Council, who took in 45.6% of the May 10 vote, will face Terrance Bankston, who had 17.9%.
The East Ward runoff will be between two other former Newark police officers, Michael Silva, who took in 35.6% of the May 10 vote, and Anthony Campos, who had 34.4%.
Baraka’s East Ward running mate, Louis Weber, also a former Newark officer, finished behind a third candidate, local businessman Jonathan Seabra, after critics raised concerns over Weber’s use of force as a cop and a 2009 sexual assault allegation, which Weber denied.
Despite his landslide win, Baraka’s victory speech after polls closed that Tuesday night was not a happy one. He thanked his supporters but railed angrily against changes in polling places and election districts that he said disenfranchised thousands of voters in his predominantly Black and brown city.
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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com
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