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Lea Sherman
Lea Sherman (Socialist Workers Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent New Jersey's 8th Congressional District. She lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Biography
Lea Sherman's career experience includes working in meat packing, as a garment worker, as an electrical worker, as a union assembly worker, and as a production worker.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: New Jersey's 8th Congressional District election, 2024
New Jersey's 8th Congressional District election, 2024 (June 4 Democratic primary)
New Jersey's 8th Congressional District election, 2024 (June 4 Republican primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House New Jersey District 8
Incumbent Robert Menendez Jr. defeated Anthony Valdes, Christian Robbins, Pablo Olivera, and Lea Sherman in the general election for U.S. House New Jersey District 8 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Robert Menendez Jr. (D) | 59.2 | 116,434 |
 | Anthony Valdes (R)  | 34.6 | 68,152 | |
| Christian Robbins (G) | 2.8 | 5,465 | ||
 | Pablo Olivera (Labour Party) | 2.2 | 4,295 | |
| Lea Sherman (Socialist Workers Party) | 1.2 | 2,419 | ||
| Total votes: 196,765 | |||
| = 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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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 8
Incumbent Robert Menendez Jr. defeated Ravinder Bhalla and Kyle Jasey in the Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 8 on June 4, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Robert Menendez Jr. | 52.0 | 22,465 |
 | Ravinder Bhalla | 37.5 | 16,218 | |
 | Kyle Jasey | 10.5 | 4,528 | |
| Total votes: 43,211 | |||
| = 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 8
Anthony Valdes advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 8 on June 4, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Anthony Valdes | 100.0 | 4,905 |
| Total votes: 4,905 | |||
| = 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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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Dario Duffe (R)
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Sherman in this election.
2023
See also: New Jersey General Assembly elections, 2023
General election
General election for New Jersey General Assembly District 33 (2 seats)
Gabriel Rodriguez and Julio Marenco defeated Lea Sherman in the general election for New Jersey General Assembly District 33 on November 7, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Gabriel Rodriguez (D) | 49.3 | 25,384 |
| ✔ |  | Julio Marenco (D) | 48.5 | 24,956 |
| Lea Sherman (Socialist Workers Party) | 2.2 | 1,121 | ||
| Total votes: 51,461 | |||
| = 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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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for New Jersey General Assembly District 33 (2 seats)
Gabriel Rodriguez and Julio Marenco advanced from the Democratic primary for New Jersey General Assembly District 33 on June 6, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Gabriel Rodriguez | 50.1 | 18,928 |
| ✔ | | Julio Marenco | 49.9 | 18,873 |
| Total votes: 37,801 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Sherman in this election.
2022
See also: New Jersey's 9th Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House New Jersey District 9
Incumbent Bill Pascrell defeated Billy Prempeh, Lea Sherman, and Sean Armstrong in the general election for U.S. House New Jersey District 9 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Bill Pascrell (D) | 55.0 | 82,457 |
 | Billy Prempeh (R) | 43.6 | 65,365 | |
| Lea Sherman (Socialist Workers Party) | 0.7 | 1,108 | ||
 | Sean Armstrong (L) | 0.7 | 1,054 | |
| Total votes: 149,984 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 9
Incumbent Bill Pascrell advanced from the Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 9 on June 7, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Bill Pascrell | 100.0 | 19,524 |
| Total votes: 19,524 | |||
| = 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 9
Billy Prempeh advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 9 on June 7, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Billy Prempeh | 100.0 | 10,724 |
| Total votes: 10,724 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Lea Sherman did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
Interview with NJ Spotlight News
Sherman highlighted the following themes in an interview with NJ Spotlight News in 2024. The questions from NJ Spotlight News are bolded and Sherman's responses follow below.[1]
| “ |
Personal background: As part of more than a dozen families of Holocaust survivors growing up in Dallas, Texas, refugees from the displaced person camps of Europe after the slaughter of the majority of my Jewish family in WWII, my support went to the Black fighters for civil rights in the South. They were fighting for democratic rights, the right to vote, jobs, education, and more in opposition to the oppression, racism, and exploitation. I felt there was a strong bond between us — this even though every school in Dallas was still segregated throughout my elementary and high school years. My father had a small shoe and repair shop and my mother worked as a home health aide. They tried to learn English and make a living, I waitressed to go to college. I saw the inequalities and the difficulties they faced, the way the system of capitalism could not accommodate the needs of working people, but always wanted you to get out of your class and I rejected that road of dog-eat-dog capitalism, built on exploitation and oppression, racism and sexism, wars and depression. Political background: Active in the fight for women’s rights, I joined the Socialist Workers Party in 1978 and have been one of its candidates for office over the years including for congress, senate, assembly, helping to extend and explain the SWP program. A program that says the working class in the U.S. can build the leadership we need and deserve out of our struggles and take on the most powerful ruling class in history. Workers can take political power into our own hands, and join in the fight to build a better world. My jobs have included meat packing, garment worker, electrical worker, assembly workers in the unions. I am currently a production worker in the BCTGM. As a trade unionist, solidarity has been organized with struggles from UAW workers to IFF workers in Memphis, to nurses in New Brunswick, and more. Participation in social struggles has been important, from joining protests against Jew-hatred after October 7 to defending Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence against Moscow’s invasion to defending Cuba’s socialist revolution and opposing the U.S. economic embargo against it. Reason for running: As part of the national slate of the Socialist Workers Party, led by Rachele Fruit, for president. Here in New Jersey Joanne Kuniansky is our candidate for U.S. Senate. From longshore workers in the U.S. to rail workers in Canada, hotel workers in Los Angeles, flight attendants, who’ve gone years without a new contract, to independent truckers hit by rising costs, tens of thousands of unions are using or preparing to use their power to fight for wages and conditions that make family life possible and exert more control over production and safety. Solidarity with these struggles is crucial. It can tip the scales so workers can advance instead of being pushed back and down. We explain that workers need to rely on ourselves and our capacities to change the conditions we face; that we need to break from the bosses’ parties, the Democrats and Republicans, and build a party of labor that will fight in the interests of all working people. It would advance the fight for Black liberation and for women’s emancipation, combat all expressions of Jew-hatred and act on the common interests we share with workers worldwide. Biggest issue: The fight over which class will rule is the central question that matters for working people everywhere. The working class in the U.S. is decisive in that struggle. The capacities and worth of working people are utterly discounted by the wealthy rulers and their backers in the middle class. But the historic accomplishments of working people — from the civil war, to the labor battles that built the unions in the 1930s and the Black-led movement that tore down Jim Crow segregation show what our class is capable of. These struggles produced revolutionary leaders of the caliber and integrity of Malcolm X. With the leadership we deserve, workers can take political power into our own hands. The SWP exists to organize and educate working people to do that. On the federal government’s role in women’s reproductive health: Women should be able to have families if they choose or not, but under capitalism, for working class women there is no choice. We need a union-led fight for employment with wage rates, work schedules, and job conditions necessary for families to live rather than be torn apart by the bosses relentless drive for profits. The fight for women’s emancipation, the ability to participate fully in all aspects of building a new society, is tied to ending the capitalist-caused crises of joblessness, lack of quality housing, child care, medical care as well as suicide and drug-addiction — all of which bear down on working class families and women especially. We fight for women’s right to reproductive and maternal health care, sex education (not gender indoctrination), safe and reliable contraceptives and the decriminalization of abortion On the U.S. transition to clean energy: The Socialist Workers Party says, “Our politics start with the world.” The interests of workers and farmers in the U.S. are ultimately tied to those of toilers worldwide. This includes fighting for nuclear power to generate electricity. For the working class what’s key is to harness this nuclear technology in order to meet needs for energy worldwide. Some 759 million people, overwhelmingly in semi-colonial countries, toil and live without electrical power. The key question is: Who controls energy production? Like every other industry under capitalist rule, it’s run to produce profits, not to meet human needs. The capitalist bosses and bankers, and their governments, toss all consideration of life and nature aside in their fight for the wealth working people produce. The working class is the only social force capable of taking advantage of labor’s scientific and technological improvements for the benefit of all. From coal mines to auto plants, it is workers fight to control all aspects of production and decisions about what is made that is decisive to preventing injuries and death. Safety conditions continue to deteriorate in every industry as the capitalists drive for profit. Working people must take control over safety and production. On ensuring free and fair elections and the transition of power: Onerous petitioning requirements are a huge obstacle to “free and fair elections.” They’re aimed at making it harder for working class parties to gain ballot access and are part of the broader assaults on freedoms listed in the Constitution. Freedom from government intervention and constraints on worship, on speech and assembly , on the press, on due process, on a trial by jury of one’s peers (not forced confessions in the form of “plea bargains”), and many more are crucial for the working class. We use these protections when we organize unions, engage in political activity and speak out in our own class interests. Democrats’ attempt to use frame-up charges to try to jail Donald Trump, their main political opponent threatens these freedoms. Regardless of the fact that the target is a wealthy capitalist and former president, all history shows that the same and far worse have been and will be used against the rulers’ main enemy, the working class. Safeguarding constitutional protections is indispensable. The SWP’s victorious lawsuit against the FBI was won for all working people, helping to defend and keep open political space. On the U.S. role in foreign conflicts: The Socialist Workers Party defends Ukraine’s fight for independence. Moscow’s troops out now! US troops and nuclear arms out of Europe! The Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom, orchestrated by the counterrevolutionary rulers of Iran, slaughtered over 1,200 Jews in Israel. The Socialist Workers Party stands unequivocally in opposition to Jew-hatred and for Israel’s right to defend itself as a refuge for Jews. We call for the defeat of Hamas. The threat of wider wars amid today’s conflicts around the world is very real. But the U.S. rulers aren’t a force against war. They’re a central actor in the conflicts among imperialist powers, moving to strengthen and use their military might to defend the capitalist rulers’ markets, profits and spheres of interest against all rivals. The Democrats and Republicans have differences over foreign policy, but they rest on common capitalist interests in interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and more. The working class needs our own foreign policy, based on our common interests here and around the world. The road to ending the U.S. rulers’ drive toward a third world war is by building parties capable of leading working people to replace capitalist rule with a workers’ government.[2] |
” |
2023
Lea Sherman did not complete Ballotpedia's 2023 Candidate Connection survey.
2022
Lea Sherman did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 NJ Spotlight News, "Election profile: 8th Congressional District," accessed October 24, 2024
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
