2023 Election Update from Chairman Suleiman

Fellow Democrats,

I wanted to provide an update on the 2023 election.

First, some good news: we are very happy that Democrats in Legislative District 4 won, which includes Buena Borough and Buena Vista Township. I had a good conversation with Senator-elect Paul Moriarty this morning about working together and being an advocate not just for the two Atlantic County towns in his district but also for our county as a whole. We look forward to working with him in 2024 as we can now say we have a Democratic senator representing parts of Atlantic County again for the first time in 5 years.

I also want to congratulate Egg Harbor City for picking up a Council seat as well as a few of our county committee members who were successful in Board of Education elections. I also want to commend Councilman Anjum Zia for winning a very close election in Atlantic City's 5th Ward despite blatant voter fraud by Craig Callaway.

Obviously, last night was incredibly disappointing for our excellent slate of state and county candidates. Our problem stemmed from one very simple thing: poor turnout. Another 1,000 doors knocked would not have made a difference (our candidates and volunteers collectively knocked close to 10,000), nor would another $10,000 (ACDC and our county candidates alone collectively raised and spent well over $100,000). Low Democratic turnout has been a problem for our party historically for decades. 

The harsh reality is that we have a chronic problem with anemic turnout in Atlantic City and Pleasantville coupled with shifting demographics in the suburbs. To be blunt: the mainland towns have been trending more Republican over the past couple of years. Democrats and Republicans are coming out and voting straight tickets, and the era of ticket-splitting is waning. We need to implement a strategy ASAP to counteract the shifting demographics in Atlantic County that are not in Democrats' favor.

Despite the headwinds we faced--an off-off year election with 30% turnout, the collapse of the offshore wind project right before the election, an unpopular move by the Biden Administration to float the ideas of sending migrants to Atlantic City Airport, and not finalizing our ticket until August-- Caren Fitzpatrick only came within 4,000 votes of beating Vince Polistina. In Legislative District 8, Anthony Angelozzi also came within a few hundred votes of winning. I have friends in politics in every part of the state, and not one of them thought we had a remote chance in Atlantic County. The fact that we kept it much more competitive than expected is something we can all be proud of.

Thank you to our excellent team of Election Day attorneys who volunteered their time to protect the right to vote: Elliott Almanza, Colin Bell, Jonathan Diego, Tim Alexander, Liz Casey, Brian Howell, Ed Weinstock, Tony Morgano, Stephanie Albrecht, Jennifer Barr, and Stephen Dicht. I particurly want to commend Colin and Elliott for their recent leadership on vote by mail and anti-Callaway litigation that we won.

Thank you to our excellent team at LD2 and ACDC, including (but not limited to): Thelma Witherspoon, Antoinette Ross, Emily McGrath, Terri Baker, Butch Burroughs, Walead Abdrabouh, Sam Bender, Colin Charlesworth, Lisa Bonanno, our friends in the South Asian caucus, and many others (I'm forgetting scores of people so my apologies). I also want to thank our vendors Superior Blue Strategies, Fuerza Strategy Group, and Goodman Campaigns for their paid communications. 

Thank you to everyone who knocked on doors, made phone calls, donated money, gave rides to the polls, wrote letters to the editor, hosted house parties, or anything else that helped our entire slate of candidates. We touched tens of thousands of voters with door knocks and phone calls. Direct conversations with voters is how we will chart a course forward.

Finally, we must thank all of the state, county, local and school board candidates who sacrificed months of their life to run for public office. Thank you to Commissioner Caren Fitzpatrick and Sheriff Eric Scheffler for their years of dedicated service in elected office to the people of Atlantic County.

We Democrats have three choices: quit, complain endlessly and unproductively lay blame on one or two individuals, or work twice as hard to rebuild our party. I'm picking the third option, and I hope you will too.

In Solidarity,

Chairman Mike Suleiman