2025 Jersey City Mayoral Election 'Retrospective' and Predictions

After hours of online research, then taking a PATH to Jersey City to talk to voters, the work paid off – I predicted the outcome of this part of the election: a runoff between Solomon and McGreevey. And Solomon did better than expected.

But the race isn't over yet. The market will resolve after the Dec 2th election – James and McGreevey go head-to-head in the runoff.

What I got right

McGreevey was not being as popular as people thought. He had a lot of advertisements, mailers, flyers, etc which did a better job at convincing the electorate he would get the most votes instead of actually getting the most votes.

McGreevey, while a gay democratic former governor, is by far the most "rightwing-coded" of the candidates which is not a good look in a "blue wave" environment. It's been more than 10 years, and dems like him start to look purple.

My intuition was that it would swing left, given that Trump was not on the ballot for republicans, and democrats would have higher turnout. It didn't, Mikie Sherrill won decisively, and she outperformed the polls.

The knock-off effect of this on the Jersey City Mayoral election is that there would be left-wing turnout looking for a more 'left' mayor in on the ballot. McGreevey being associated with Trump ~ Kushner money – and the other candidates calling him out for it – would make people see him as more right-coded than his policy.

What I got wrong

I didn't sell any Solomon Y

I should have sold some Solomon Y at 88c. My average price before this was 19c so this would be a secure way to bank some gains, and maybe use them to buy at a lower price.

But I didn't sell! It's a little too late now that the prices are coming back down, but I'm waiting for the 100c cashout anyways :)

McGreevey Underpeformed

The McGreevey advertisement trap got me and I thought he would make it to number one. Solomon performed even better than I expected.

I also had a bet on McGreevey Yes (307 contracts at average 59c) that hit 75c, and if I was so confident in my Solomon thesis, I should have sold it off then. But at the time it made sense.

Ali Overperformed

I honestly thought Ali would do worse than he did (around 10% of the vote) and did not expect him to be competitive with O'Dea. This didn't affect my positions, but it was interesting. He could be a local force in politics if he sticks around and the younger voters stick with him over time.

He ran a good campaign, had committed volunteers, and I think he'll do well in the future in some political capacity. This campaign will help him locally.

There are some parcels like Ward C District 17 where the ranking was Ali, O'dea, McGreevey, then Solomon.

I didn't meet a McGreevey Voter

Nobody I talked to said they voted for McGreevey. This almost makes all my speculation and writing unreliable.

While my intuition was correct, I would have been more comfortable putting more money down, and a better understanding of runoff if I had a better handle on the reasons people voted for McGreevey.

Should have bought more

Enough said. After investing the time and energy, I didn't grow my position enough to make the big big bucks. So it goes.

Looking forward to the Runoff

The runoff happens on December 2nd, so it's time to stop smiling about what I got right and try to predict the runoff result.

Turnout

This is a turnout election. In November voters were voting for council people, governor, etc alongside mayor. But people need to be pushed to vote in this one, which favors the die-hards.

The majority of December voters will have already voted a month before, and most Solomon voters won't switch their vote to McGreevey or vice versa. So turnout really matters here.

Something people (non-McGreevey voters) told me on the ground in Jersey City is that McGreevey was going to win because of name recognition. If we follow this logic, this kind of uninformed voter won't be voting. They already voted on November 4th and it would take a lot more to get them out in December.

Energy and Momentum

Solomon is a candidate for the young, compared to McGreevey. Solomon is posting videos of himself canvassing the day after the election

He is getting some higher-up endorsements, like from NJ senator Andy Kim, and since he outperformed he's more people will help with his campaign to get a slice of his anticipated power.

McGreevey has older voters and older volunteers, and he underperformed expectations, so I have a hard time seeing him getting any further momentum.

There isn't that "likely to win" mood in the McGreevey camp anymore, the results are in, so there's no advantage here for them.

Coalitions and Endorsements

Mussab Ali (18% of vote) and O'dea (21%) are already working with Solomon. He will pick up most of these votes.

Ali and O'dea have volunteers that will be helping Solomon out this time, applying their staff and understanding of the political landscape to the Solomon campaign.

Given this, what's the coalition for McGreevey? Who wants to be Team McGreevey after an underperformance like that?

Predictions

Solomon will win decisively. Barring a "December surprise" there are too many factors stacked against McGreevey.

What is a single compelling reason that McGreevey can win? He could spend a crap-ton of money to turn out his base. This means calling and texting everyone on his lists, paying canvassers to go door-to-door, sending bots to his posts' comments sections, mailing more mailers... Sound familiar? That's the same thing he did in the general, and he underperformed.

In my opinion, the only possibility for McGreevey winning is that the nature of the runoff would heavily favor him.

Maybe there is some world where a ton of highly-informed "no kings libs" went out to vote for Mikie Sherrill, did a tiny bit of research and liked Solomon, and they got their win for the state of New Jersey and won't vote in December. Meanwhile, the boomers that have been going to McGreevey rallies, Catholics at the churches he attends, etc march to the polls and deliver a McGreevey wins, overwhelming all the O'Dea / Ali voters who stay home.

I don't think that's very likely.

Positions

I'm selling my McGreevey, will keep picking up cheap shares, and hope for some swings towards McGreevey with news that doesn't matter.