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Imani Oakley
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Imani Oakley (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent New Jersey's 10th Congressional District. She lost in the Democratic primary on June 7, 2022.
Oakley completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Imani Oakley was born in New Jersey. Oakley graduated from Howard University in 2012 and New York University in 2014. She received her J.D. from Howard University in 2017. Her professional experience includes working as dean of movement building with Movement School. Oakley has also be associated with Working Families New Jersey.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: New Jersey's 10th Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House New Jersey District 10
Incumbent Donald Payne Jr. defeated David Pinckney, Cynthia Johnson, Kendal Ludden, and Clenard Childress Jr. in the general election for U.S. House New Jersey District 10 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Donald Payne Jr. (D) | 77.6 | 100,710 |
| David Pinckney (R) | 20.0 | 25,993 | ||
 | Cynthia Johnson (Jobs and Justice) | 1.5 | 1,989 | |
| Kendal Ludden (L) | 0.5 | 634 | ||
| Clenard Childress Jr. (The Mahali Party) | 0.3 | 381 | ||
| Total votes: 129,707 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Dorothy Jane Humphries (Together We Can)
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 10
Incumbent Donald Payne Jr. defeated Imani Oakley and Akil Khalfani in the Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 10 on June 7, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Donald Payne Jr. | 83.3 | 29,680 |
 | Imani Oakley | 10.6 | 3,764 | |
 | Akil Khalfani | 6.1 | 2,169 | |
| Total votes: 35,613 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 10
David Pinckney defeated Garth Stewart in the Republican primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 10 on June 7, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | David Pinckney | 82.5 | 3,581 | |
| Garth Stewart | 17.5 | 760 | ||
| Total votes: 4,341 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Campaign themes
2022
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released July 6, 2021 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Imani Oakley completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Oakley's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a progressive organizer, pro-democracy advocate, and lifelong New Jerseyan. I have experienced first-hand the struggles our communities face whether its environmental injustice, racism, or housing insecurity. Like many in the 10th district, I am frustrated that our representative is more inclined to listen to oil-pipeline lobbyists than his own constituents and more likely to miss an important vote than lobby on our behalf.
I have spent years both in movement spaces and in the halls of power. I have seen how easily those in power disregard the needs of marginalized people just to make a quick buck or to not rock the boat. I'm running to end our corrupt "tammany hall" style politics in New Jersey and deliver real, progressive change.
- Housing is a Human Right: As a survivor of foreclosure, I know the stress and pain that come with housing insecurity. No one should lose their home and we can and must end the predatory housing practices fueling our national housing crisis.
- A Green New Deal: As a sufferer of environmentally induced asthma, I know that our current environmental practices hurt communities — especially communities of color. Climate change is already here and we need a mass governmental mobilization to reorganize our economy and society if we will successfully meet this challenge. This means investing in new green union jobs to revitalize at risk areas and transition workers away from polluting industries. At the same time, we must ensure that no one is left behind in the green transformation. Part of the Green New Deal is investment in infrastructure, the creation of a Citizen Climate Corps, a jobs guarantee, and other necessary programs to reverse the damage those in power have done.
- Medicare 4 All: When we say healthcare is a human right, we must wholeheartedly commit to making that a reality. That means a single payer system with no copays, no premiums, no out of pocket expenses, and no means testing. It means healthcare at point of service for all people in this country. This is not a pipe dream or a poorly thought out idea. It is a real and attainable policy objective that will drastically increase the quality of life for hundreds of millions while at the same time drastically reducing the amount we spend on healthcare annually.
As a long time pro-democracy advocate, I am deeply passionate about making sure that our democracy works for everyone — not just the mega-wealthy. This means protecting and expanding the Voting Rights Act, ending partisan and racial gerrymandering in all their forms, adopting ranked choice voting, publicly financed campaigns, eliminated the effects of Citizens United, and other important measures.
As a Black woman, I am also heavily invested in the fights against systemic racism, systemic sexism, and their intersections. Black women continue to have some of the highest maternal mortality rates across our country. Black people continue to face high rates of policing and state violence even after the 2020 George Floyd Protests. The time is now for Congress to enact real change on these issues. I'm running because my representative has failed to do so despite being in office for almost a decade.
As a Black woman, I am also heavily invested in the fights against systemic racism, systemic sexism, and their intersections. Black women continue to have some of the highest maternal mortality rates across our country. Black people continue to face high rates of policing and state violence even after the 2020 George Floyd Protests. The time is now for Congress to enact real change on these issues. I'm running because my representative has failed to do so despite being in office for almost a decade.
Our communities need progressive brawlers — representatives who are committed to their principles and willing to fight tooth and nail to turn their policies into law. I am that type of scraper. Politics is like a boxing ring; you need to be able to take punches and give back even stronger. Corporations already have representatives like that and I believe that it's time that working people get that too. I have the grit and courage necessary to stand up to the machine and will bring those qualities to everything I do in Congress.
Representatives need to realize that elected office is a job and one that is meant to reflect their communities. This means actually showing up to work — not consistently proxy voting or missing votes. Public officials should also be able to intimately understand the needs of their constituents through shared experiences and struggles. Aloof or detached electeds inherently are not representing their districts and should not be in office.
One of my first real memories is of attending a racial justice protest in my home town — Montclair, New Jersey — when I was six years old. Police had assaulted several black children behind my house and my community stood up to fight back against this injustice. That was decades ago. The fact that this story could have happened 50 or 5 years ago is a moral condemnation of our criminal justice system. Our communities need real justice and it has been long overdue.
Soft Corruption — This book is a scathing critique of the corruption endemic in New Jersey and the type of broken machine politics that I have spent years fighting against in my home state.
The next decade will be critical for what type country we want to be. We face many issues but probably none more severe than the triple existential threats of climate change, homegrown white supremacist terrorism, and exploding wealth inequality.
Each of these have a ripple effects across every facet of our lives and must be tackled aggressively and immediately. That my districts current incumbent continues to accept money from fossil fuel conglomerates and has done nothing about white supremacist terror despite sitting on the United States House Committee on Homeland Security shows how completely out of touch he is and how unprepared he is for the next decade.
Each of these have a ripple effects across every facet of our lives and must be tackled aggressively and immediately. That my districts current incumbent continues to accept money from fossil fuel conglomerates and has done nothing about white supremacist terror despite sitting on the United States House Committee on Homeland Security shows how completely out of touch he is and how unprepared he is for the next decade.
I aim to be and would be honored to serve on the United States House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and United States House Committee on the Budget.
My district suffers from predatory lending and has some of the highest rates of foreclosure in the country. It is crucial to my community — and communities across the country — that they have a progressive fighter dealing with housing. My district also has a large number of immigrants and 1st generation Americans. Many came to the US to escape the effects of our own foreign policy. I am committed to ensuring that we end our forever wars and holding foreign aid recipients to a high human rights standard.
My district suffers from predatory lending and has some of the highest rates of foreclosure in the country. It is crucial to my community — and communities across the country — that they have a progressive fighter dealing with housing. My district also has a large number of immigrants and 1st generation Americans. Many came to the US to escape the effects of our own foreign policy. I am committed to ensuring that we end our forever wars and holding foreign aid recipients to a high human rights standard.
With the slim Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress — and without out being able to end the filibuster — the budget reconciliation process is one of the few avenues to enact legislative change. I am committed to using the budget and revenue power of the House to serve my community. This means advocating for reparations for the descendants of African slaves and Indigenous people, eliminating student loans, reducing military spending, investing federal dollars into local affordable housing, and building a robust universal basic income.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
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Candidate U.S. House New Jersey District 10 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on August 23, 2021
Senators
Cory Booker (D)
Andrew Kim (D)
Representatives
District 1
Donald Norcross (D)
District 2
Jeff Van Drew (R)
District 3
Herbert Conaway (D)
District 4
Chris Smith (R)
District 5
Josh Gottheimer (D)
District 6
Frank Pallone (D)
District 7
Thomas Kean (R)
District 8
Robert Menendez (D)
District 9
Nellie Pou (D)
District 10
LaMonica McIver (D)
District 11
Mikie Sherrill (D)
District 12
Bonnie Coleman (D)
Democratic Party (11)
Republican Party (3)
