Jamaicans jump into races for New Jersey, Virginia governor and other political posts

In 2025’s off-year elections in the United States (US), a number of Jamaicans or persons of Jamaican descent have thrown their hats into the political ring, the biggest prizes being the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia.

Sean Spiller, the mayor of Montclair in New Jersey, who boasts Jamaican roots through his mother, has signalled that he is running for governor of the state.

In Virginia, current Lt Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, who is Jamaica-born, is running for governor of that state.

Michael Blake, who also has Jamaican roots, is one of the candidates running to become mayor of New York City, seeking to succeed current Mayor Eric Adams.

Also running in this off-year elections is Lawman Lynch, who is seeking to become the first Jamaica-born male to win a seat on the New York City Council.

Eddie Edwards, who is Jamaica-born, is running to be a commissioner in the city of Miramar, Florida.

If Spiller and Earle-Sears are successful in their campaigns, they would join the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, as US governors with Jamaican roots.

Primary elections will be held in Virginia on June 17 while the primary election in New Jersey will be held on June 10. Primary elections for New York City Council will be held on June 24.

The elections are slated for November 4, 2025.

In the race for governor of New Jersey, there are 10 declared candidates, six democratic candidates and four Republican candidates.

In Virginia, there are four declared candidates for governor, Earle-Sears and Merle Ruthlidge on the Republican party ticket and Abigail Spanberger and Bobby Scott on the Democratic party ticket.

Before becoming mayor, Spiller was first elected in May 2012 as the Third Ward councillor. He successfully ran for mayor and on July 1, 2020, and was sworn in as the 21st mayor of Montclair.

Spiller feels that he can replicate his success at the local level on the state-wide level.

UPHILL TASK FOR SPILLER

Since first being elected, Spiller said he has worked hard to find creative ways to bring in new revenue for his town and has also looked for greater efficiencies to solve the existing challenges facing the town.

He currently serves on the township’s Economic Development Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Education Committee. Additionally, he previously served on the Board of School Estimate, the Public Safety Committee, and Montclair Business Improvement District (BID) board.

Through those committees and normal Council action, he has worked to increase smart, green development in town – helping to reduce the tax burden and has helped to implement a debt-reduction plan.

An educator for over 20 years, Sean Spiller was a high school science teacher in Wayne. He is a graduate of Montville public schools and completed his undergraduate studies at Rutgers University (Rutgers College) and earned an MS degree from Ramapo College. Involved with educational issues at the local, county, and state level, he has fought to integrate services and eliminate wasteful spending, while maintaining top-level education for all children.

At Rutgers, Spiller played ice hockey, serving as captain and team liaison to the university while the skaters earned two championships. He has also been a coach for local travel and high school teams, as well as the Rutgers University women’s ice hockey team.

Spiller said he was excited for the service ahead and would continue to look at everything through a lens of social justice, racial equality, positive public service policy, and fiscal responsibility, ensuring that New Jersey remains the place that residents want it to be.

Spiller faces an uphill task to win the democratic primary.

HISTORY-MAKING IF SEARS WINS

In Virginia, Earle-Sears has been endorsed by the present outgoing Governor Glenn Youngkin and she is expected to win the Republican primary and face off against Democrat Spanberger.

If Sears wins in 2025, not only would she be the state’s first female governor of the state but the first woman of colour to become governor of any state in the US. Sears was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1964. She migrated to the US at the age of six. She grew up in the Bronx, New York City.

On May 11, 2021, Sears won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Virginia on the fifth ballot, defeating former state delegate and second-place finisher Tim Hugo 54 per cent to 46 per cent. On November 2, 2021, she won the race along with gubernatorial candidate Youngkin and attorney general candidate Jason Miyares.

She was inaugurated as the 42nd lieutenant governor of Virginia on January 15, 2022. She is the first female lieutenant governor of Virginia as well as the first black woman lieutenant governor and statewide officeholder in the Commonwealth.

Should Lynch win his seat in November 2025, he would become the first Jamaica-born male to sit on the city council. Una Clarke was the first Jamaican to sit on the council when she ran successfully for Council District 40, also in Brooklyn.

Lynch is running in division 41, which takes in such areas as Brownsville, Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, East New York and Oceanville.

It cuts across the Congressional districts currently represented by Jamaican Yvette Clarke and Hakeem Jeffries.

Lynch, known as a youth activist while he was in Jamaica, was born in Woodford Park, Kingston, and attended the Salvation Army Basic School, Alpha Infant School, Jessie Ripoll Primary School and later Wolmer’s Boys’ School.

He also attended The University of the West Indies but did not complete his studies there, migrating to the US in 2010, not long after reports of an incident in which his motor vehicle was firebombed.

editorial@gleanerjm.com