Hudson County Democrats have suddenly become all one big, happy family

The warring tribes of Hudson County Democrats, having spent years and fortunes hacking each other to pieces, have suddenly discovered they are all one big, happy family.

They call it a “unity slate.” To the voters who once believed a progressive wave might wash the old machinery out to sea, it looks more like a merger. The insurgents who rode into town on promises to drain the swamp have now cut a deal with the folks who have been living in it for generations.

Less than three months before the June primary, the new Hudson County Democratic Organization, helmed by County Executive Craig Guy, unveiled a ticket that is a masterclass in political realpolitik.

The grand unification was announced with the usual press release, the usual quotes, the usual clasping of hands for the usual photographs.

It is a coalition that yokes together Jersey City Mayor James Solomon, the standard-bearer of the progressive revolt, with Union City’s Brian P. Stack, the double-dipping old-school boss who built one of the state’s most formidable political machines.

They are joined by a who’s who of the county’s political class: State Sen. Raj Mukherji, Assemblywoman Katie Brennan, and Assemblyman Ravi Bhalla, along with a parade of mayors from Hoboken to Bayonne.

The slate blessed six incumbent county commissioners and anoints three newcomers to fill open seats.

The stated aim is harmony. The underlying reality is consolidation. This is the sound of a political establishment, briefly shaken by reformers, reasserting its control by absorbing them.

For Solomon, who took office as mayor in January after campaigning as a clean break from the old order, the endorsement of this unity ticket represents a definitive embrace of the apparatus he once railed against.

His presence alongside Stack—a man whose political organization is legendary for its discipline—sends a singular message to the rank and file: the insurgency is over. The party is now a holding company.

The ticket’s composition reflects the arithmetic of power. The incumbents being protected hail from the party’s traditional strongholds.

The new recruits include Ron Bautista of Hoboken, a Working Families Party activist making his third bid for county commissioner. His inclusion is the olive branch, the fresh face allowed at the table to prove the tent is still, as they say, big.

“This is what it looks like to build a bigger tent and embrace young, independent leaders,” said Assemblywoman Brennan, a progressive voice who is now a vocal backer of the unified slate.

But the tent’s poles are firmly in the hands of the old guard. Notably absent from the list of endorsers is Nicholas Sacco, the former North Bergen mayor and longtime power broker whose ongoing rivalry with Stack has defined the county’s political fault lines for years.

Sacco ally and County Commissioner Robert Baselice is on the slate, but the power broker himself is left out in the cold—a clear signal of which faction prevailed in the backroom negotiations.

The unity ticket is presented as a model of “extraordinary diversity” and a strategic move to make the county the “premier county in the State of New Jersey,” in the words of County Clerk Junior Maldonado.

To the ordinary citizen, the language of “shared values” and “working families” has a hollow ring. They have seen this show before.

The machine was challenged, the voters cried out for change, and the response from the political class was not to step aside, but to reorganize. The primary ballot will now be a formality, the outcome sealed not at the voting booth, but in the moment the political barons decided that unity was more profitable than division.

The slate promises to deliver “real results.” In Hudson County, that has always been the promise. And for those who find their names on the ballot, the results have indeed been delivered—a full three months before a single vote is cast.