With very little support from voters, NJEA President Sean Spiller’s run for governor is looking more and more like a personal vanity project.  And a very expensive one at that — funded by $35 million of teachers’ regular dues without their knowledge or consent.  

That’s what we deduce from the New Jersey Monitor‘s report on fundraising New Jersey’s announced candidates for the 2025 governor’s race.*  Here are the totals raised so far:

1. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop (D): $3.2 million
2. 2021 gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli (R): $2.9 million
3. Former-Senate President Steve Sweeney (D): $2.4 million
4. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D): $1.7 million
5. State Senator Jon Bramnick (R): $1.5 million
6. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D): $1.4 million
7. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D): $1.2 million
8. Radio personality Bill Spadea (R): $1.1 million
9. NJEA President Sean Spiller (D): $182,884

The Monitor describes Spiller’s total as “anemic:” not only is Spiller dead last among the candidates, but he’s dead last by a very large margin.  Spiller has raised a mere 1% of the $15.6 million raised by the nine candidates.  He is the only candidate not to have qualified for matching funds ($580,000 threshold).  As Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, explained: political analysts want to see “signs of life” in a campaign, and “money is one of those signs.”  That is, Spiller’s campaign is emitting very weak signs of life.  Clearly, New Jersey voters are not backing Spiller.

And no wonder: Spiller is a highly controversial candidate. Just this week, former-Montclair mayor and councilman Bob Russo stated after a Spiller mailer used his image without Russo’s permission: “I would never endorse Sean Spiller because of his poor record as Montclair mayor.” Spiller was so unpopular in Montclair that he did not run for re-election because he would have lost.  We would add the Spiller also remains under “ongoing” state criminal investigation for improper use of state health benefits.

With this backdrop, Spiller’s run looks more and more like a personal vanity project.

But that is stopping neither Spiller nor the NJEA that he runs.  $15.6 million is a lot of money, but it’s peanuts compared to the $35 million that NJEA leadership (including Spiller) plans to spend supporting his run via NJEA-run, dark-money Super PAC, Working New Jersey.  Working New Jersey is funded by teachers’ regular, annual dues via the NJEA’s own Super PAC, Garden State Forward.  NJEA leadership hides the existence of Garden State Forward from the very teachers whose dues fund it, so most teachers have no idea that $35 million of their regular dues are to be spent backing Spiller.

Russo captured the reality well: “Spiller’s candidacy and use of millions of dollars of teachers union funds is a total fraud on the voters of New Jersey.”  It’s also a fraud on New Jersey teachers, who are being forced to fund it. 

* Former-State Senator Ed Durr (R) is running for governor but has not reported raising any money.