Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop announced this morning that he will soon reveal a lieutenant governor running mate to share his ticket as he pursues his own gubernatorial campaign. Fulop, who launched his bid to seek the Democratic nomination for the governor’s seat back in April of 2023, has used that time to campaign across the state and build up a grassroots effort to offset the lack of institutional party support he has compared to some other Democratic candidates.

The mayor is seeking to secure the progressive wing of the party, which he considered crucial to shaking off Democratic apathy that nearly cost Phil Murphy his re-election in 2021 and almost cost Kamala Harris taking the state in 2024. While Democrats continue to enjoy a majority compared to Republicans, energizing the base has proven difficult.

All the candidates have been focusing on one especially bipartisan issue in the state: affordability. The Fulop campaign has been trying to set itself apart by offering extensive, specific policy proposals to deal with a host of specific policy issues in the state. Fulop frequently asks voters to look at all the candidates’ websites and compare them to his, asserting that most political campaigns tend to be vague in their responses, which can turn off some voters.

In the Trump 2.0 political landscape, Democrats are doing some soul-searching. The party is split between moving the Democratic Party further to the middle, with the hope of capturing moderate Republicans worried about MAGA and independents who are less concerned with issues traditionally associated with the progressive wing, or whether to provide a starker choice between the Democratic and Republican nominees in November. This could, in theory, infuse energy into Democratic voters who have come to see the party as moribund but grudgingly better than a GOP alternative. Low Democratic voter turn-out demonstrates the disconnect between the rank-and-file and the party establishment. Fulop is betting that taking a different track will make him more attractive to Democrats who have stayed at home, rather than vote. At a forum in Westwood last week, he said a Democratic nominee being compared to “four more years of Phil Murphy” by the Republican nominee would be damaging. He also said that a “Republican-lite” candidate would all but certainly hand over Trenton to an actual Republican governor.

The idea, therefore, would be to avoid seeming like more of the same. “I don’t think Phil Murphy’s been bold enough,” Fulop said.

In a campaign press release, the Fulop campaign said that a lieutenant governor running mate would be announced next week. “Our campaign has never been about doing things the way they've always been done. We’ve been unapologetic about driving real change in New Jersey, both in how we run this race and in the framework we’re building to govern once we win. We reject the status quo that so many others are comfortable with. ‘That’s how it’s always been done in New Jersey’ is not an acceptable answer for the future.”

Although the primary election has yet to pass, and Fulop has yet to actually secure the nomination—facing stiff resistance from Essex-based Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka—the decision to announce a lieutenant governor beforehand is an interesting, and potentially advantageous move by Fulop.

“Because you deserve to know what kind of leadership you’re voting for, not just after the primary, but before it,” the Fulop campaign said, “you deserve clarity on what our administration will look like and how we’ll lead on the priorities that matter most to working families.”

The position of lieutenant governor may present an opportunity for Fulop to try to bridge the gap between his grassroots, anti-establishment campaign and the institutional Democratic Party goodwill every campaign could benefit from with its support apparatus. There are a lot of cold shoulders in Fulop-World, something he has tried to turn to an advantage, but a gesture to thaw those relationships might yield some benefit. New Jerseyans will soon see whether Fulop decides to extend a kind of olive branch to the party leaders, with an establishment favorite, or whether he will opt to buck the system further and embrace an outsider. It would be a gamble to see if this running mate might stoke some fire among the progressives at the expense of the benefits institutional favor could bring.