Jersey City Mayor Healy Concedes Defeat To Challenger Fulop
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Jersey City will have a new mayor, as challenger Steven Fulop defeated incumbent Mayor Jerramiah Healy Tuesday night.
As of the 9 p.m. hour, Fulop, a City Councilman, had captured 52.1 percent of the vote, while Healy had captured only 38.6 percent, 1010 WINS reported Tuesday evening. Healy and Fulop are both Democrats.
Healy had been seeking a third full term against Fulop and two other challengers: Jerry Walker and Abdul Malik.
Mayoral Elections Being Held In Jersey City, Passaic
Healy has been mayor since 2004 and the 62-year-old is a longtime Hudson County political and legal figure.
Fulop has been on the city council since 2005. The 36-year-old former Marine is a Goldman Sachs employee.
It had been a contentious contest with Fulop's supporters reminding voters that some of the mayor's allies were sent to prison for their part in a corrupt real estate deal, 1010 WINS' John Montone reported.
"There's been a lot of people that have gone to jail on his watch," one voter said.
"Our taxes have gone up almost 100 percent, city services have gone down, there's trash everywhere," one voter said.
But Healy's supporters said the city has prospered under his leadership.
"Jerry's done a phenomenal job in taking our city and making it safe, making it the revenue source that it should be and taking care of its people," one man said.
The race mirrors the changing face of Jersey City. The city of 350,000 across the Hudson River from Manhattan has long been dominated by the working class and immigrants. But groups of young professionals have rapidly gentrified the waterfront and downtown.
Meanwhile in Passaic, incumbent Alex D. Blanco easily won re-election against four challengers, according to a NorthJersey.com report.
Blanco won all 30 districts in the city and defeated his closest rival, Jose Sandoval, by a margin of 3 to 1, the newspaper reported.
Also on the ballot were Jeffrey Dye, Diomedes Minaya, and Pablo J. Plaza, who came in third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.
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