Taking on Donald Trump has become a requirement in the Democratic primary for N.J. governor

“We are just talking about Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Donald Trump,” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a progressive Democrat running for governor, said at a panel in late November, faulting the Democratic Party for focusing too much on simply not being Trump.

But three months into Trump’s second term as president and two months ahead of the New Jersey primary election for governor, talking about Trump is a requirement for the six Democratic gubernatorial candidates.

Baraka released a video campaign ad this month that starts with a clip of Trump promising to eliminate the federal Department of Education, accompanied by eerie music, before a more upbeat tone brands Baraka as unafraid to stand up to Trump.

That message has been one of the most consistent among the Democrats running in the party’s competitive June 10 primary for New Jersey’s top office.

Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, said Trump is top of mind for Democratic primary voters because it’s impossible to ignore his onslaught of executive orders, appointments, court cases, deportations, and tariffs. Rasmussen and other New Jersey political experts used the same phrase to describe Trump: “He takes up all the oxygen in the room.”

And each of the Democratic candidates is well aware of that.

“I never dreamed that running for governor would be so much about Trump and [Elon] Musk,” said Steve Sweeney, a South Jersey union leader and former state Senate president running in the primary. “We have issues that we really need to be talking about, but it’s hard to talk about it because of the craziness in the country.”

A video featured prominently on Sweeney’s campaign website mentions Trump’s name before his own.

Sean Spiller, president of the NJEA teachers union and former Montclair mayor, has a page on his campaign website called “Protecting Our Democracy” that mentions Trump nine times.

And an 8.5-by-11-inch mailer supporting Spiller has an image of Musk giving a controversial salute at Trump’s inauguration event spread across one side of the page. The other side says to “Stand with Sean against hate and MAGA extremists.”

U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, one of two members of Congress in the race, said in an interview that New Jersey needs an “aggressive fighter who’s not afraid to fight for Jersey families.” That’s exactly how U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, is branding herself, such as in an ad called “Fighter."

As much as Sweeney laments the focus on Trump, he — and voters — know that cuts at the federal level could affect New Jersey’s budget, a touchy subject in a race that is also focused on making New Jersey a more affordable place to live.

Sweeney blames Democrats in Congress for not doing more to fight Trump, an argument that Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop also makes in an effort to discredit Gottheimer and Sherrill.

Fulop argues in a mailer that congressional Democrats are “failing to stop Trump and Musk,” and in a video ad he says he successfully protected Jersey City residents from “Trump discrimination in health care, housing, and policing.” In that video, the camera pans out to a high-rise behind Fulop, who points to it and says he prevented the Trump family from getting tax breaks to build it.

But Sherrill and Gottheimer both argue they have been fighting Trump on the front lines on Capitol Hill and can offer solutions to the so-far-tumultuous economy under his administration.

Sherrill said in an interview that she has a record of standing up to Trump, as one of the leaders working to impeach him in 2019 during her first term, and now through Democrats’ 45-member Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group formed to push back against Trump’s administration. She said the task force is working on amicus briefs, pressuring Trump to honor congressional appropriations, and reaching across the aisle to Republicans who could, in Sherrill’s words, “peel off.”

She said that as governor she would look to build more housing, get solar power into the grid, and increase oversight to state health insurance plans to help drive down costs.

Gottheimer, meanwhile, touts legislative efforts that aim to push back on Trump’s tariffs and protect Social Security. He unveiled a plan to “Stop Trump and Protect our Jersey Values” at Honda of Tenafly earlier this week, which includes ideas like requiring utility companies to add a “Trump tariff” cost indicator on bills. He also created a survey for New Jerseyans to share how tariffs are affecting them.

Trump has also been top of mind in the Republican primary, with various candidates making their loyalty to the president a hallmark of their campaigns and two competing for his endorsement.

» READ MORE: The battle for President Trump’s endorsement has reached new heights in the New Jersey GOP primary for governor

Kellyanne Conway, a pollster and former senior adviser to Trump who managed his successful 2016 presidential campaign, said she believes former Assembly member Jack Ciattarelli, a third-time candidate for governor whom she is backing in the race, has positively evolved his campaign this time around by reaching out to more of Trump’s base.

On a call with reporters, she criticized Democrats for answering questions with “Trump, Trump, Trump” and said she is not concerned about a Trump endorsement hurting a Republican in the general election “because the Democrats have one message, still, for whatever reason, and it’s ‘I’m not Trump.’

“‘I’m not Trump’ is not a message,” she added.

» READ MORE: Will Donald Trump endorse in the GOP primary for New Jersey governor? Kellyanne Conway thinks so.

But Democratic political consultants are counting on blaming economic stress on Trump’s administration as the year goes on.

“Every single Democrat, running for governor or not, should be hollering from now until Election Day about the Trump-Musk economic chaos and the Trump tariffs that are really just a Trump-imposed tax on every single New Jerseyan,” said Joshua Henne, a Democratic political consultant who has worked on several statewide races in New Jersey.

He warned, however, that politicians should focus on issues that matter to voters and be wary of “the bait” — like what he called “Trump’s crazy statements.”

Democrats also have to balance attacking Trump on their priorities with being cautious about material Republicans could frame for general election attacks, such as on immigration and Israel, according to Patricia Campos-Medina, a former progressive candidate for U.S. Senate and political activist who is now serving as an adviser for Sherrill.

“They all are trying to survive the primary in a position that they can actually withstand an attack from the right in the general election,” she said.