Polls in Newark close at 8 p.m. ET, and the Associated Press will provide vote results and declare a winner once a trailing candidate cannot mathematically close the gap. The first vote report of the night for Essex County typically includes nearly all results from early and absentee voting, with Election Day in-person results following.
The reelection push comes after an eventful 12 months for the mayor. Almost a year before Tuesday’s election, Baraka was arrested at a protest outside a federal immigration detention center. Prosecutors later dropped the charges, and Baraka filed a lawsuit against the federal prosecutor at the time alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution.
Baraka also expanded his political footprint last year, placing second behind then-U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill in the Democratic primary for governor. Sherrill won the general election, but Baraka remains focused on municipal leadership. The office of Newark mayor is nonpartisan, meaning candidates do not appear on the ballot under a party label and the electorate spans the city’s full partisan makeup.
Seven candidates challenge the incumbent, each drawing from different professional backgrounds. The ballot includes artist Tanisha Garner, developer and contractor Noble Milton, community organizer Sheila Montague, community activist Debra Salters, former Newark Municipal Court administrator Nasheedah Singleton, tech entrepreneur Jhamar Youngblood, and Douglas “Rodney” Davis, whose campaign platform prominently features ending “casual Fridays” in City Hall.
Historical voting data points to Baraka’s dominance but highlights persistent electoral engagement from a subset of the city’s electorate. Montague placed a distant second behind Baraka in the 2022 mayoral race, capturing about 17 percent of the vote. In 2024, both Montague and Salters sought the Democratic nomination to replace the late U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, finishing seventh and eleventh, respectively, in that primary contest.
Newark had approximately 159,000 registered voters in the 2025 general election, but municipal turnout historically runs lower. About 18,000 votes were cast in the 2022 mayoral election, with roughly 16 percent of those ballots cast early or by absentee. As of Thursday, about 2,700 ballots had already been cast for this year’s race, with the vast majority coming from registered Democrats.
New Jersey law does not mandate automatic recounts, and contested municipal results are rare in the state. If the outcome is close, candidates and voters may request and pay for a recount, though the expense is refunded if the recount changes the result. The AP will still declare a winner if it determines a lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to alter the final tally, even while the process remains technically open.
If no candidate reaches the majority threshold on Tuesday, the city will schedule a runoff election for June 9. Voters will have 28 days to cast ballots in that second contest if the initial results produce no clear majority winner.