An ironworker by trade who knows not only how to walk into a union hall but how to organize out of one of them, Steve Sweeney as senate president tried to spud wrench worker and taxpayer interests in a politically death-defying juggling act that ultimately cost him reelection.

Now he’s back, with $2 million in the bank as of the middle of October, seeking the 2025 Democratic nomination for governor, a week and a day removed from Republican Donald Trump’s steamrolling of Democrats who got too precious to simply deliver a stentorian pro-worker message. Sweeney’s Building Trades ally, former Assemblyman Tom Giblin, an operating engineer, left office cautioning Democrats: ignore Building Trades Labor at your own peril.

Sweeney, himself run out of his LD-3 senate seat by a nonunion – of all things – over-the-road trucker, more as collateral damage to Phil Murphy progressivism and the reddening of South Jersey in part owing to Fox News barstool brainwave deadening, wants to give his bealeagured party one last shot to make it about workers and not every little stubbed toe and tear-inducing personal offense.

To be clear, the Biden Administration had a stellar record on Building Trades issues, but like Sweeney, in a sense, found itself devoured by voters who couldn’t stick with the party on social issues, and, in the case of the Dems’ national campaign, preferred to think a change in direction might lower the price of eggs sooner than furnish Trump with an opportunity to pelt them with eggs.

As Democrats break into factions ahead of a gubernatorial election year and run the danger of becoming little more than shreds of individual angry grievances, Sweeney sees a chance to invoke the old organizer’s code and make the contest about workers. His allies will make the case that as a guy who knows what it means to struggle to pay bills, who relied on labor, not investments, Sweeney connects better with the Democratic Party electorate.

But are any of those guys still around? They might be, if Sweeney’s around. If Sweeney’s not around, they might not be, or so runs the argument.

Of course, Sweeney has a complicated record as a New Jersey lawmaker, ticking off, in no particular order, marriage equality advocates when he abstained on gay marriage, prior to backing it; public sector workers when he teamed up the Anti-Christ (in the parlance of public sector labor, and that’s putting it nicely) to patch the state’s pension system, prior to working with the NJEA to secure Title 44; and even, apparently, his own Fox News-fed constituents, prior to them voting out of office in a 2021 shocker.

But the bottom line – or so say his allies – is that when it comes to workers, Sweeney has a record that at this moment in time, can cut through a lot of incoherent party messaging, a champion of Paid Family Leave – probably his signature labor accomplishment, job creation, strengthened collective bargaining protections, $15 minimum wage, and many other pro-labor priority accomplishments. Certainly, the fact that he simultaneously prizes efficient government makes him persona non-grata among diehard libs – even now – or maybe especially now as the contest intensifies.

If Dems haven’t utterly eradicated Sweeney’s rank-and-file base in the excruciating aftermath of Trump’s victory, the former senate president’s backers still see a path for their guy even though he couldn’t win the 2017 Democratic Primary for governor at the zenith of his political power.

First of all, without a party line – the consequence of Andy Kim’s successful legal case – and lacking county party support outside of South Jersey, they see a way for Sweeney to penetrate on the strength of high name ID. They also trust in the three separate candidacies coming out of Essex County bulldozing one another into less than robust campaigns, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop sniping progressives, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka drilling into cities, and U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer and U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill chopping up North Jersey between them. With a labor organizer’s mentality, Sweeney, they argue, can consolidate himself and his Building Trades base maybe better than the others, expressing a readymade message for a party, if it cares anymore to hear about a balanced economic plan that doesn’t shaft, and in fact prioritizes, the worker. At the very least, even if public sector labor disagrees, Sweeney won’t have to wonder about a campaign starting point, which for him will always be a Union Hall.