NJ-GOV: NJEA has funneled $40 million into pro-Spiller (D) PAC
When Working New Jersey, an independent expenditure group supporting New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) President Sean Spiller’s campaign for governor, filed with the state’s campaign finance agency last year, it raised some eyebrows with the vast amounts of money it pledged to spend. A new filing from the PAC confirms that its commitment wasn’t just talk.
According to a pre-Primary Day filing with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), Working New Jersey has spent a whopping $37.5 million so far this cycle to support Spiller. Every single dime – all $40 million that the PAC has reported raising – has come from the NJEA’s own super PAC, Garden State Forward.
That’s a mammoth investment that the state’s largest teachers’ union has put behind its own president, also the former mayor of Montclair, as he tries to break out in a six-way field for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. And it doesn’t even include the millions of dollars that Garden State Forward funneled into another pro-Spiller group, Protecting Our Democracy, in the lead-up to the campaign.
The union’s investment has made Spiller’s ads and mailers ubiquitous across New Jersey for months; long before any other Democratic candidates began seriously spending money, Working New Jersey was making a concerted push to introduce Spiller to voters around the state. But recent polling has shown that Spiller’s path to the nomination has narrowed; he’s typically placed near the bottom of the pack in both independent and internal polls, and some have even shown him losing ground compared to earlier in the year.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/governor/njea-has-funneled-40-million-into-pro-spiller-pac/