The 2025 NJ District 37 Assembly Race: The Claims and the Facts

On June 6, 2025, four days before the New Jersey Democratic primary, in a posting titled “Don’t Vote for Who you Like, Vote for Who Will Win” on the Facebook group “Teaneck Today,” Teaneck Mayor Mark Schwartz urged voters eligible to vote in the New Jersey Democratic primary to vote for Yitz Stern and Rosemary Hernandez Carroll for General Assembly.

Schwartz claimed—without providing any substantiation—that Stern and Carroll were “top of the polls” and “look like they will win.”

They did not.

Four days later, it became clear just how wrong Schwartz was. Stern and Carroll lost.  Badly.

Incumbents Shama Haider and Ellen Park beat Stern and Carroll in every single one of District 37’s ten municipalities. They even beat Stern in Teaneck, where Stern had served as a councilman and where Schwartz marshaled the Jewish political and institutional establishment to support him.

The margin between Haider, the lower performing of the two incumbents, and Carroll, the better performing of the Stern/Carroll slate, was over 3,200 votes, or more than 50% of all votes Carroll received.

The loss was resounding, and it has prompted soul-searching within the Jewish community. Not merely because the loss was so bad, and so at variance with the pre-primary day puffery, but because the loss seemed like an unforced error. Like the Jewish community blew an election it should have won.

Because it did.

The Jewish community had a golden opportunity. An Orthodox candidate who was young, vibrant and charismatic, with a strong professional pedigree, had entered the race in October, two and a half months before Yitz Stern chose to come out of retirement to run against her. She had already forged a strategic partnership with another community, having entered the race with a Korean American running mate who was a serious candidate in his own right. She came into the race with the backing of a gubernatorial candidate, which Stern and Carroll—all their municipal level endorsements notwithstanding—never achieved. And she was able to appeal to voters outside of her own community in a way that Stern was not.

Tamar Warburg[1] was someone whom the Jewish community establishment should have backed, or at minimum not actively opposed.

Rather than partner with Warburg or simply step aside, a group of self-ordained “leaders” and Jewish community organizations, purportedly dedicated to greater Jewish communal political representation, torpedoed her candidacy.

Instead of trying to partner with a slate already in the race, these “leaders” and organizations spent months putting together their own slate.[2]  They expended extraordinary effort, and significant funds, to support that alternative slate. They used their positions of trust, and weaponized Jewish values like “achdus” (unity), to undercut a fellow community member. They even had the chutzpah to refer to the unqualified non-Jewish woman whom they found to run with Stern the “community’s candidate,” instead of the Orthodox yeshiva day school parent and product who grew up in the community she sought to serve.

And they lost.

The hard truth is that the Jewish community has nothing to show for these efforts.  These self-proclaimed “leaders” and organizations handed a winnable election to the incumbents. They needlessly squandered an opportunity to gain greater representation. They wasted funds that could have been used for better purposes.  And they made the Jewish community look weak, divided, and downright incompetent.

Such a debacle should prompt reflection. What happened, why did it happen, who should accept responsibility for this failure, and where do we go from here? Over the coming weeks—beginning this week with a consideration of claims made in light of election data that has now been certified[3]—I will share my take.

***

A. Turnout was Strong, and Particularly Pronounced in the Jewish Community.

Some may attribute a significant loss to low turnout in the Democratic primary, but that would be wrong. Turnout was exceptional, better throughout the district than in any Democratic primary in the district since 2021 and far exceeding statewide primary turnout trends which have been around 10% historically.[4]

That high turnout was particularly strong in towns with relatively large Jewish populations—Englewood, Teaneck and Tenafly—which one sees also on a more granular, district-by-district level within those towns. In Teaneck (which had the highest voter participation rate overall), for example, turnout was particularly strong in districts with a significant Jewish population (blue).

In short, the Jewish community turned out.  It did what it was asked to do. The problem was that its “leaders” unfortunately asked it to do the wrong thing.

B. Considering the challenges she faced, Warburg performed very well.

One of the big questions facing the Stern/Carroll slate’s backers is why they made no attempt to work with Warburg and chose instead to run an entirely different slate. That question gains force when one considers Warburg’s performance in light of the significant challenges she faced. Specifically:

i.  Name Recognition. Warburg was a first-time candidate. She faced two-term incumbents and a former Teaneck councilman who spent decades in local politics.

ii. Resources. Warburg’s opponents raised more money and heavily outspent her—at least 2:1 in the case of Stern/Carroll and as much as 25:1 in the case of Haider/Park.

Based on campaign disclosures, the Park/Warburg campaign spent $43,150.52 in total.[5]

The Stern/Carroll campaign’s total amounts are currently unknown because they failed to timely file their required post-election report and still have not filed it as of the writing of this piece. That said, as of June 1^st, the Stern/Carroll campaign had spent $70,823.06,[6] which was well over double the $31,092.40 spent by the Park/Warburg campaign for the same period[7].  These amounts do not include funds independently expended by other organizations, such as Teach PAC[8], in support of the Stern/Carroll campaign.

The incumbents’ totals—which were far in excess of both challenger slates—are also difficult to pin down given the various sources of contributions and expenditures favoring them, but some illustrative examples make the point: (i) $170,964.63 paid by Haider & Park for Assembly to Silver Strategies and Communications Group for media-related services on 6/27/25[9]; (ii) $77,606 paid by Haider for Assembly to Silver Strategies and Communications Group for media-related services on 6/2/25[10]; (iii) $33,500 paid by Haider for Assembly to Patinkin Research Services for media-related services on 6/27/25[11]; (iv) $12,717.50 paid by Park for Assembly to PEM Law for Legal Services on 6/11/25[12].[13]

iii.  Establishment Opposition. Warburg was opposed by multiple political machines: (a) the Democratic Committee of Bergen County (DCBC), which supported the incumbents and (b) the local Jewish political establishment (Teaneck Mayor Mark Schwartz, Deputy Mayor Karen Orgen and Former Mayor Elie Katz), which supported Stern/Carroll.  The DCBC paid canvassers to deliver incumbent-favoring literature to voters’ homes.  The Jewish political establishment employed its controlled newspaper (the Jewish Link) and social media platform (Teaneck Today) to plug the Stern/Carroll slate.

iv. Organizational Opposition. Local Jewish community organizations—BCJAC and Teach PAC—deployed significant resources, including volunteers, in a relentless campaign to undercut Warburg.  Teach pushed local Yeshiva day school principals to take the unprecedented step of issuing a letter endorsing the Stern/Carroll slate.  BCJAC even stationed volunteers outside of Teaneck’s Richard Rodda Center during early voting who dissuaded voters from voting for Warburg.  An entirely new organization—the New Jersey Solidarity Network (now called New Jersey United)—was formed shortly before the election and published a “voter guide” opposing Warburg’s candidacy.

v. Negativity. Stern’s supporters, including members of BCJAC and Teach and New Jersey United, attacked Warburg in a number of different forums, and worked to persuade Jewish community members not to vote for Warburg.[14] Despite that, Warburg never went negative on Stern.

Despite these challenges, Warburg performed well relative to Stern.

i. Yes, Stern garnered more votes than Warburg, but the margin was relatively small considering his advantages.

ii. Stern’s wins were concentrated in the Orthodox community. Outside of it, Warburg outperformed him.

a. Warburg beat Stern in 6 out of District 37’s 10 towns.

b. Even in towns where Stern garnered more votes due to strong Orthodox turnout, Warburg did better with non-Orthodox and non-Jewish voters.

• Teaneck. Outside of districts with meaningful Orthodox populations, where Stern enjoyed the support of the Jewish establishment, Warburg out-performed Stern, and beat him in most (7/11) of the predominantly non-Orthodox districts (orange).

• Englewood. In Englewood, the difference was particularly pronounced.  Warburg beat Stern in almost every district in the largely non-Jewish wards (3 & 4).  Indeed, although Stern garnered more votes overall than Warburg in Englewood—attributable to heavy wins in Jewish areas (wards 1 & 2)—Warburg beat Stern in most of the town’s districts (9/16).

In sum, one would be hard-pressed to construct a scenario in which Stern could have enjoyed stronger advantages.  Yet Stern received less than 1,300 votes more than Warburg, and Warburg out-performed Stern in non-Jewish areas.

It is therefore fair to ask: if Warburg did this well with the deck stacked completely against her, was she not the better candidate for the Jewish community to have consolidated behind?  Why was the Stern/Carroll slate necessary?   What motivated its emergence? Were those motivations in the Jewish community’s best interests? We will explore those questions in the future.

C. The “Strategic Partnership” between the Jewish and Hispanic communities never materialized.

Supporters of the Stern/Carroll slate touted a “strategic partnership” between the Hispanic and Jewish communities as a driving force for their slate[15] but the data does not show a partnership. On the contrary, although much (if not most) of Carroll’s support came from Jewish areas, Carroll’s supporters did not support Stern.

a. District-wide: While there was relative parity between Stern and Carroll in towns with heavy Jewish populations (blue), there was a heavy disparity between Stern and Carroll in in Non-Jewish areas (orange).

b. Hackensack. Almost 40% of Hackensack voters who voted for Carroll did not vote for Stern.[16]

c. Englewood. In non-Jewish areas of Englewood, Carroll voters similarly declined to vote for Stern.

d. Teaneck. Finally, we saw a similar disparity between Carroll and Stern in the predominantly non-Orthodox districts in Teaneck.

In sum, the “strategic partnership” touted by the Stern/Carroll slate never materialized.  It gained no meaningful traction outside of the Jewish community.  In a subsequent piece, we will explore why.

***

In a 1913 article in Harper’s Weekly, titled What Publicity Can Do, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that “[p]ublicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases,”[17] and that “[s]unlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

This election revealed a lot about our community.  Not all of it is pretty.  There is a lot that needs fixing, but I believe that we can fix it.  Yes, this election was a debacle, but it can also be a teachable moment.  We can learn from our mistakes and ensure that we do not repeat them.  But to do that, we need to have an open and honest discussion.  I believe that our community is best served by confronting the mistakes made head-on, and learning from them, rather than running away from them.  I look forward to continuing this discussion over the coming weeks.

[1] Readers should note that I am Tamar Warburg’s husband and managed her campaign.  With that said, the data presented here is drawn from publicly available sources which are cited, so that the data and analysis presented can be independently reviewed and challenged.

[2] Some of these “leaders” and organizations now claim that it was their intention all along to run Stern, and that Warburg somehow announced her candidacy “too early” (see https://jewishlink.news/an-open-letter-to-our-community-2/).  These claims defy both the facts and common sense.  No less than ten assembly candidates announced their candidacy as part of Fulop’s slate before Warburg announced her candidacy on October 28, 2024 —some of them months earlier (see, for example: https://www.insidernj.com/press-release/eddie-freeman-iii-will-run-for-state-assembly-in-8th-district-as-part-of-mayor-fulops-coalition/).  Moreover, if these organizations had a candidate, why did they not announce immediately after Warburg announced?  Why did they wait two and a half months until January?

[3] Turnout data presented in this piece is derived from the official election results posted on the Bergen County Clerk’s website (see https://www.bergencountyclerk.gov/Election/).  The 2025 results can be accessed via the link below (District 37’s results begin on page 401 of the PDF).  Note that the turnout rates for 2022 and 2021 primaries were not provided in the official results for those years so I computed them using the number of voters and registered voters for such years which were included in such results. https://www.bergencountyclerk.gov/_Content/pdf/ElectionResult/2025%20Primary%20Early%20Voting%2C%20Election%20Day%2C%20VBM%2C%20%26%20Provisionals%20by%20District.pdf

[4] For historical primary turnout trends, see: https://www.nj.gov/state/elections/assets/pdf/election-results/other/primary-election-data-1925-2024.pdf

[5] https://www.njelecefilesearch.com/SummaryData?eid=466376

[6] See Form R-1 for Stern and Hernandez-Carroll for Assembly filed on 6/2/2025.

[7] See Form R-1 for Park and Warburg for Assembly filed on 5/30/2025.

[8] An examination of the legally and ethically dubious close relationship between Teach, ostensibly a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, and Teach PAC,  a political action organization supposedly operating separately from Teach in accordance with applicable federal and state regulation, is beyond the scope of this article.

[9] https://www.njelecefilesearch.com/SearchExpenseInteractive?eid=473674

[10] See Form R-1 for Shama Haider for Assembly, filed 6/29/25, page 8 of 11

[11] Ibid, page 9.

[12] See Form R-1 for Park for Assembly, filed 6/29/25, page 8 of 13.

[13] It should be noted that these expenditures are (i) only some of those made by the incumbents themselves and (ii) totally separate from independent expenditures favoring the incumbents made by others, including Middle Ground PAC, which some have speculated could have been as much as over $1 million in addition to expenditures by the incumbents themselves.

[14] BCJAC published an FAQ on its website (see https://www.bcjac.org/faq/) which attacked Warburg’s association with Steven Fulop, stating that “[t]he Company you keep is an important factor”, and despite saying that “Warburg is a Zionist and a supporter of Israel” raised questions about her campaign’s commitment to Israel on the basis of pro-Israel Facebook postings appearing on Warburg’s personal page rather than the campaign’s official account.  New Jersey United published a “Voter Guide” that claimed that merely by virtue of “running on Fulop’s ticket,” Warburg had demonstrated “a willingness to compromise in the fight against antisemitism and for Israel” (see https://newjerseyunited.org/voter-guides/).  Neither organization noted the fact that Warburg and Park publicly supported IHRA’s passage prior to Stern’s entry into the race (see https://jewishlink.news/statement-in-support-of-ihra-assembly-and-senate-bills/), nor made any attempt to contact Warburg to ascertain her positions prior to publishing their guides.

[15] All of this is beside the fact that there already was a strategic partnership.  Tamar Warburg entered the race with a Korean running mate.  Moreover, Stern did not enter the race with a running mate—it took him months to find one—so the claims that a strategic partnership drove his candidacy don’t track the facts.

[16] Incidentally, even without a running mate from Hackensack, Warburg’s performance in Hackensack (593) was similar to Stern’s (703).

[17] https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-weekly_1913-12-20_58_2974/page/10/mode/2up