Carmen Bucco has spent years running in races that Republicans don’t typically have a prayer of winning – and he’s not stopping now.
Bucco will vie once again next year to flip New Jersey’s 10th congressional district, a majority-Black, Newark-based district that ranks as the state’s bluest. The seat is currently held by Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), who defeated Bucco in a September 2024 special election and the subsequent November general election, both times by landslide margins.
A tailor by profession (his business, Bucco Couture, reached the second round of the Shark Tank application process three times, he said last year) and a former Belleville school board member, Bucco has also waged unsuccessful campaigns for borough council, county commissioner, and the state legislature. He ran for a seat in the State Assembly just this year, getting around 15% of the vote in the Elizabeth-based 20th district.
Bucco said that, now that he’s back in the race for the 10th congressional district, it will be his mission over the course of the next year to convince voters – especially the Democratic voters who wouldn’t normally opt for a Republican – that sticking with the status quo isn’t working any more.
“It’s reaching out to the Democrats and educating the Democrats as to what’s really going on,” he said. “Democrats have voted down the ticket for decades, but nothing has changed, and the corruption that goes on will never end until the people wake up and say, ‘I’ve had enough.’”
Since her election last year, McIver has become something of a national figure, with the Trump administration seeking to prosecute her for scuffling with federal immigration agents in May. Bucco, though, said that the congresswoman has failed to deliver for the 10th district and predicted that she wouldn’t even make it through next year’s primary, claiming that six other Democrats will be running against her. (No Democrats besides McIver have announced campaigns as of yet.)
As for his own primary, Bucco said he’s “very confident” about his ability to secure the GOP nomination once again, even though he’s not a down-the-line party foot-soldier.
“I don’t work for Trump. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody tells me how to vote,” Bucco said. “MAGA doesn’t work in New Jersey.”
According to one measure, the 10th district is the 20th-most Democratic district in the entire country, backing Kamala Harris by 51 percentage points and a 133,764 raw-vote margin in 2024. Bucco, though, put those numbers in more optimistic terms.
“I only need to convert 65,000 votes in this district,” he said. “When you think about the numbers, that’s not a lot.”
