BARAKA CAMPAIGN RELIES HEAVILY ON SMALL DONORS

Newark mayor avoids Wall Street money, and it avoids him

This report on Ras Baraka’s campaign fundraising is the third in a series on the Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Earlier, The New Jersey Democrat reported on the sources of funds for Steve Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, and Sean Spiller, former mayor of Montclair and president of the NJEA.

Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark and one of six Democratic gubernatorial candidates, is a progressive running in the left lane of the field. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Baraka is running behind his rivals in the money race.

On the campaign trail, Baraka has been highly critical of Wall Street, especially the involvement of companies such as Black Rock who’ve tried to corner the housing market in his city. He’s criticized his opponents, Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, whose congressional campaigns were fueled by Wall Street, for taking its money. “Rep. Sherrill has taken $2.6 million from Goldman Sachs, Black Rock and JP Morgan and Wall Street players who are buying up residential properties all over the country,” he wrote In a May 2 opinion piece in the New Jersey Globe, adding that “she refused to support bills to ban hedge funds from buying single family homes, worsening the housing crisis for first-time buyers.”

So, Baraka’s campaign for governor has gotten just a trickle of money from people in the financial services industry. And he does not receive significant amounts of campaign contributions from real estate mega-donors.

Much of his campaign cash, according to an analysis by The New Jersey Democrat, reveals that his money came more from smaller donors than people with deep pockets, the kind of people who write checks for $5,000 or more. In fact, a larger share of his contributors is made up of smaller donors than is true of other candidates. Of his 1,519 individual contributors, only 10 percent of them gave between $5,000 and the maximum $5,800, compared with Sherrill, for example, whose large contributors over $5,000 were 19 percent of her total funders.

Without deep-pocket donors, Baraka has raised significantly less than his competitors. According to the latest campaign finance reports filed May 12 with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), Baraka has raised $5,439,864, compared with over $9 million for Sherrill and Gottheimer, $8.9 million for Steve Fulop, and $7.5 million for Steve Sweeney.

Sean Spiller, the sixth candidate, has tens of millions of dollars available to his campaign from a super PAC backed by the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), as The New Jersey Democrat reported last week.

But, in fact, on his own, Baraka has pulled in far less than his rivals. So far, according to Baraka’s May 12 filing with ELEC, Baraka pocketed more than $3,117,148 in matching funds, while his campaign itself raised only $2,344,774. And, according to ELEC, since that filing Baraka has received additional matching funds , bringing his matching funds total over just over $3.5 million. While Sherrill, Gottheimer, and Fulop have maxed out, Baraka has only qualified for about two-thirds of the total $5.5 million matching fund money available to candidates.

And, according to the most recent tally from ELEC, Baraka has just over $666,000 in cash on hand – compared, for instance, to Sherrill’s $4.7 million stockpile.

A deep dive into Baraka’s funders, along with the PAC that is backing him, indicate that he garnered support from many of the small businesses in Newark, many of the people working for the city itself, as well as a number of larger companies that are involved in the Port of Newark , along with family real estate companies that have fueled the redevelopment of downtown Newark.

Looking at who is contributing to his campaign and where they work, the top category of contributors to Baraka’s campaign are people who work for the City of Newark, who contributed more than $109,000. And, based on ELEC data, they’re just regular people: firefighters, engineers, accountants, police officers, and code enforcement people, among others.

Owners and key personnel at two real estate development companies that have been instrumental in revitalizing downtown Newark are large contributors to Baraka’s campaign. Topping the list are members of the Berger family, which runs the Berger Organization, who’ve combined to contribute more than $75,000 to his gubernatorial run. The Berger family has been involved in downtown Newark real estate for over three decades and restored historic office buildings at Military Park, which house entertainment companies, nonprofits and public agencies, and they also restored the century-old Robert Treat Hotel. The Berger Organization is now involved in at least two major apartment towers that will provide over 100 affordable apartments, along with 500 market rate units.

A second key real estate backer of Baraka is the Boraie family. Their company was brought into Newark by NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, a Newark native, and they have worked together on large-scale high-rise housing. They were the first to build a high-rise apartment building in Newark in 50 years. The company has several apartment projects underway that will have 20 to 25 percent of the units designated affordable for lower income people.

Companies active in Newark whose principals have contributed more than $10,000 to Baraka’s campaign include, Perdomo of NY LLC, a demolition and excavation contractor, and Lemcor, a solid waste disposal company. Principals at Daybreak Express, a transportation, freight logistics company, have been particularly generous, contributing more than $35,000.

The New Jersey Democrat also looked into whether corporations that bought up small homes in Newark over the last decade were donors to Baraka’s campaign. A recent study, Who Owns Newark? by David Troutt, a Rutgers University law professor, found that by 2020 almost half of all Newark’s residential sales of family homes were to institutional buyers, rather than people who would live there. This turned many homes into rentals and drove up the cost of housing. It also locked residents out of home ownership.

But TNJD could find no indication that any of the three main firms cited in Troutt’s report – Adar Capital, Lexington Property Group, and Harness Homes Group – or their principals made campaign contributions to Baraka’s campaign.

As part of his campaign platform Baraka has called for getting big money out of politics. He proposed eliminating dark money, putting limits on and revealing contributions to super PACs, and capping party funding for individual candidates.

But until that happens, he, like the other Democratic candidates, has an outside super PAC helping his candidacy, called One New Jersey United. It’s run by Lavar Young, a managing director at consulting powerhouse Mercury LLC. He was an assistant to the state education commissioner earlier in Governor Phil Murphy’s administration, and he has also headed up several major Newark nonprofit groups.

In its filing papers with the ELEC, the PAC declared its intent to spend $600,000 in support of Baraka’s run for governor. In the big money game, that’s not very much.

And where is the PAC’s money coming from? According to Open Secrets, the PAC received $636,886 from another PAC, Unite PAC. And the largest donation to Unite PAC was $45,000 which came from Mohammed Naeem, founder of Sunrise Group of Companies, which focuses on treating drug addiction. The Patel Family Partnership, which invests in innovative healthcare, donated $25,000. So did Aldine Capital, which has an investment in a Newark apartment building. KS Group, a real estate firm planning to building the largest apartment towers in the city, two 51-story buildings, which would provide 202 affordable units, also contributed $20,000. Demolition contractor Perdomo contributed $20,000 to the PAC and also gave money directly to the Baraka campaign. Daybreak Express mentioned above, gave the PAC $15,000.

One New Jersey United ran its first campaign ad for Baraka last week revisiting Baraka’s arrest at the proposed immigrant detention center Delaney Hall, promoting him as the candidate willing to stand up to Trump.