Hoboken, N.J., Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher Analyzes At Large Council Election Results

I hope you are enjoying this gorgeous, albeit chilly, fall weather.  If you haven’t already, remember to set your clocks back today and take the important, life saving step to change the batteries in your smoke detectors.

I want to extend my congratulations to Mayor Bhalla, Councilwoman Emily Jabbour and Councilman Jim Doyle on their re-election.  And to Councilman-Elect Joe Quintero, welcome to the governing body family – we look forward to his fresh voice and new perspective!  Notwithstanding the political theatrics that you sometimes see, we actually work together well and get a 9-0 vote 95% of the time for what is right for Hoboken.  With our next City Council, I hope that we don’t lose our ability to debate issues, that transparency and public involvement will always be held as a critical step to all policy decisions, and that Hoboken’s interests will always come first.  I also hope that we will support, not hold against, those who ran for City Council this year and want to join or remain on a municipal board.

So many have reached out over the past few days wanting to understand better why Hoboken’s election results were what they were, having been surprised by the outcome.  I too was surprised and when the winning camp said it was a “strong mandate for status quo” it definitely didn’t seem to reconcile with what we had heard from voters.  So I looked into it and this is what I discovered…

The trajectories of campaigns often change as they advance towards Election Day as more voters are reached and issues are discussed.  And that is exactly what happened this year in Hoboken.  By the time Election Day rolled around, independent  candidates captured almost half the votes on Election Day.  At the door and at the voting both, the real message voters gave Hoboken elected officials was approval for status quo, but rather a “mandate for change”. 

The results evolved from the beginning of the campaign, when the message and most candidates were relative unknowns, to the end of the campaign when the message for change picked up steam and voters learned about the independent voices who were running.  By the time Election Day arrived, the Independently Together slate which I supported and included Cheryl Fallick, Sheila Brennan and Paul Presinzano, saw their vote capture increase from 20% to a third of the vote with this exact message.  Team Bhalla started strong when there was little known competition with 70% of the VBM’s, but on Election Day they held only 51%.  What does this mean?

Hoboken voters mandated that their local government change the direction and priorties on important issues that impact their quality of life.  Just because the independents did not win, does not mean that this message calling for change died at the polls.  As an your representative I am personally committed to being part of the solution and not part of the problem, ensuring that the issues raised by voters during this campaign will be addressed and made a higher priority than have been over the past four years.  Issues such as everyday flooding and lack of parking, which were by far the top two issues, followed by feeling unsafe on our streets and sidewalks, housing affordability concerns, infrastructure that cannot support over development, homelessness and lack of recreation programs.  I know many of my City Council colleagues will join me in this advocacy and pushing the Bhalla Administration to make headway on these issues impacting our quality of life.

There were at least 1,940 voters who voted by mail during the election, most having voted in the first few weeks, and the incumbents received approximately 70% of these votes.  ADVANTAGE TEAM BHALLA

I am not suggesting that without these advantages that the outcome of our elections would be different.  Team Bhalla candidates had a lot of support.  We have had some major successes under Mayor Bhalla that are important to our residents including, most importantly, our public health and safety relating to how COVID was handled, protection of our waterfront, the expansion of parks and open space and support for small businesses, in particular.  In general people love Hoboken and ascribe that feeling to the strength of their existing government.  But when you dig a little deeper you find that the seven independent candidates gave incumbents a run for their money.

With a late start and in just 8 short weeks after the ballot was set, after Team Bhalla tried unsuccessfully to have three of the independent candidates removed from the ballot, all seven candidates combined limited the incumbent-led team to just over 50% of the vote overall, and came out almost even on Election Day. Why? Because when they eventually got to the voters, independent candidates came with the right message:  Hoboken voters want change in direction on quality of life issues that this administration has not prioritized or has actually taken measures against.  Issues such as:

These are the big issues we heard about on the campaign trail this year.  And they aren’t going away – as a matter of fact, status quo policies will only make these worse.  Voters have given us marching orders and a mandate to make changes in these areas to improve our quality of life.  I am in and ready to work together with Mayor Bhalla and my City Council colleagues to make this happen.

I want to thank all of the independent candidates who ran but were unsuccessful individually in their quest to be elected.  It is hard to run for office.  It takes money, an offensive amout of time away from your family, friends and day to day life, and a lot of grit to talk to so many strangers asking them to elect someone they have never heard of.  You should all be so proud of what you accomplished this year and I hope that each of you remains active and finds other ways to be an even bigger voice in our community.  It is because of all of you that democracy in our local elections was somewhat preserved this year.  And I hope you will continue to be a voice defending it in the future.