It was a narrow but significant win for Newark Mayor Ras Baraka two weeks ago, when his preferred candidate, Amina Bey, won a pivotal seat on the city council, giving the three-term mayor a working majority again.
Bey captured the Central Ward seat vacated last year when LaMonica McIver was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election following the death of Rep. Donald Payne, Jr. (D-Newark).
In a close race, Bey defeated former Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield Jenkins by 98 votes out of 8,381 cast, 3,302 (39.4%) to 3,204 (38.2%). They were followed by Jhamar Youngblood, a promising young candidate who received 10%, and George Tillman, Jr. (9%), a businessman who served on the city’s Affirmative Action Review Commission when Booker was mayor. Walter Jacob received 106 votes, 31 more than the number of signatures he needed to get on the ballot.
This restores Baraka’s working council majority.
Bey will complete McIver’s unexpired term, which expires on July 1, 2026. Baraka and the entire nine-member Newark City Council are up for next May in the city’s non-partisan municipal elections.
Chaneyfield Jenkins sought an at-large city council seat in 1994, but lost in a runoff. But following the 1995 bribery conviction and resignation of Councilman Gary Harris, she scored an upset victory against former school board member Bessie Walker and seven other candidates. She was forced into a runoff in 1998 and was re-elected.
In the 2002 Newark Street Fight election between Mayor Sharpe James and Booker, Chaneyfield Jenkins ran with James. She was pushed into a runoff but won.
Four years later, after James stepped aside and Booker was the easy winner in the mayoral race against State Sen. Ronald Rice, Chaneyfield Jenkins found herself in a runoff and lost to future Rep. Donald Payne, Jr.
Chaneyfield Jenkins staged a comeback in 2014, when she forced Central Ward Councilman Darrin Shariff into a runoff in a seven-candidate race that included Speight (10%) and Brito (66%). She wound up unseating Shariff by 909 votes, 62%-38%.
When she challenged Baraka for mayor in 2018, she lost in a massive 77%-23% landslide; he won 75% of the vote in the Central Ward.
