Is New Jersey Ready For A Socialist Governor? This Candidate Thinks So

NEW JERSEY — Is New Jersey ready for a socialist governor in 2025? Joanne Kuniansky thinks so – and she’s making another run at the job.

Last week, Kuniansky filed 3,161 signatures with election officials in Trenton. At least 2,000 signatures are required to get on the ballot for the general election on Nov. 4.

Kuniansky is running with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) along with her lieutenant governor candidate, Craig Honts, a factory worker and member of the Bakery Confectionery Tobacco and Grain Millers union.

Garden State voters might recognize Kuniansky from her former campaigns. She ran against Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021 as the SWP candidate, competed for U.S. Senate in New Jersey last year, and sought a state Senate seat in 2023.

The last time that she attempted to run for governor, Kuniansky was employed as a deli worker at Walmart, a gig that offered a stark contrast to Murphy’s pedigree from Goldman Sachs. She has also worked in oil refineries and the meat packing industry. Read More: Meet The Socialist Walmart Worker Running For NJ Governor

Kuniansky previously said that her jobs have given her a front-row perspective on the fight for labor equality – a cornerstone of her campaign. Some of the issues and programs she has supported include:

• Federally funded public works programs to “put millions to work at union-scale wages”
• Shortened workweeks with no cut in pay to stop layoffs
• Cost-of-living clauses in every contract that raise pay and retirement benefits to offset every price rise

Although she’s no longer grinding out hours at Walmart, the SWP candidate said she has continued to support her working-class peers in New Jersey, including striking transit workers, flight attendants and postal workers.

• See Related: Striking Train Engineers Picket Outside NJ Transit HQ
• See Related: U.S. Airline Reaches Deal With Flight Attendants After Strike Threats

“Working people face a world marked by deepening economic and social crises, and conflicts between rival capitalist powers, leading to more wars and the threat of a nuclear conflagration,” Kuniansky said.

“These conflicts are the root cause of the bosses’ attacks on working people,” she said.

Other issues that are part of Kuniansky’s platform in 2025 include “ending the growing threat of wider wars,” calling for “U.S. troops out of the Middle East,” and supporting immigrant rights, including an “amnesty for workers without papers” in the U.S.

Kuniansky also said that “fighting Jew-hatred” will be a central part of her latest campaign, pointing to a recent violent attack in Colorado, the fatal shooting of a young couple in Washington D.C. who worked for the Israeli embassy, and an arson attack at the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

As election season heats up in New Jersey, the SWP has been campaigning across the state, appearing at May Day rallies in Newark and Bloomfield, visiting workers’ doorsteps in Passaic, and stumping at a Walmart parking lot in Saddle Brook.

“Our campaign couldn’t be more timely,” Kuniansky told The Militant in March.

“More workers are giving a hearing to a party that tells the truth about the deepening assaults on our jobs, living standards and working conditions, and that speaks out boldly in opposition to capitalist rule,” she said.

Democratic and Republican candidates in New Jersey will face off for their party’s nomination in a primary election on June 10. The winners will advance to the general election, which will also include any third-party or independent candidates.

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