NEWARK, N.J.—Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D., N.J.) rallied with Newark mayor and Louis Farrakhan acolyte Ras Baraka (D.) and Chigozie Onyema (D.), a defund the police advocate, on Sunday as her lead in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race shrinks heading into the home stretch.
Baraka and Onyema offered rousing endorsements of Sherrill before the three Democrats led volunteers on a door-knocking campaign in New Jersey’s largest city. Onyema, a state assembly candidate, said Sherrill “understands what it means to love,” while Baraka urged the crowd to tell “everybody you know up and down the block, at work, in the barber shop, in the beauty parlor” to vote for her.
The pair joined the campaign event, which also included Maryland governor Wes Moore (D.), as polls show Sherrill’s Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, closing in. A Fox News survey last week put Ciattarelli within the margin of error, though a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released Friday gave Sherrill a 7-point lead.
Calling on Baraka and Onyema for an event in deep-blue Newark suggests Sherrill is concerned about shoring up her left flank.
Baraka—whose father, Amiri Baraka, was stripped of his post as New Jersey’s poet laureate after publishing a poem suggesting Jews had advanced knowledge of the 9/11 attacks—has long praised the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan, the group’s notoriously anti-Semitic leader.
In 2004, Baraka, serving as Newark’s deputy mayor, called Farrakhan a “role model” while introducing him before a speech. Video footage that surfaced earlier this year shows Baraka cheering after Farrakhan says, “The cracker hit you on your jaw, you break his neck.” When Baraka was asked about the incident, he defended the Nation of Islam and said, “I will not be bullied or silenced.”
He also said former Newark mayor Sharpe James (D.), who served jail time for using his power and influence to defraud residents, “helped define me, my values.”
Baraka lost his own gubernatorial bid to Sherrill in the June primary after challenging her from her left flank. During his campaign, he accused her of being “tone-deaf” on race.
Onyema’s involvement in Sherrill’s campaign, meanwhile, calls the congresswoman’s stance on police into question. While Sherrill says she wants to provide law enforcement with “the support and resources they need to be successful,” Onyema has long advocated for defunding the police. He repeatedly pushed it on Instagram throughout 2020 with “#DefundPolice” included in the caption.
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Although he’s scaled back his rhetoric, his campaign website lists “funding for social services” as part of his “reimagining public safety” plan. Onyema, who was endorsed by the New Jersey chapter of the pro-Hamas Council on American-Islamic Relations, also describes Newark as “Unceded Lenape Land” in his Instagram biography.
Sherrill did not respond to a request for comment.
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