Nov. 4 races could net LGBTQ firsts in General Assembly, Jersey City, Summit
Maplewood Township Committeeman Dean Dafis, who also served as the township’s first openly gay mayor, confirmed to Out in Jersey media on Friday (Oct. 31) that he will be running for Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill’s current House seat if she is elected governor. It had been reported in the press that he was only considering whether to run for that 11th U.S. Congressional District seat.
If Dafis wins, he would be the first openly LGBTQ representative that New Jersey has sent to Washington.
“Should we be able to inch out a win on Tuesday (Nov. 4), we’re gonna give it a shot. Yeah, no question,” Dafis said in a phone interview.
There are two reasons he’s running, he said. One is that the Democrats want to prevent Republican candidate Joe Hathaway from flipping the seat from blue back to red. The second is to run a campaign that is “really laser-focused on working families and their everyday kitchen-sink issues,” which is how to keep that seat blue, Dafis said.
The No.1 issue affecting all working families, according to Dafis, is housing affordability. The committeeman has experience there. He is the director of the Office of Eviction Prevention in the state Department of Community Affairs’ Division of Housing and Community Resources.
“People are just barely making the rent and mortgage. Utility costs are through the roof,” he said, noting that childcare is also too expensive.
Everyday people and their issues, he said, will be the focus of his quite possibly historic campaign that could result in another LGBTQ first for him.
“So this would be history-making as well, and I have to say, you know, in this particular moment in time when the LGBTQ+ community is explicitly being targeted by this hateful administration in Washington, we do need one of us to be there to represent, to fight back and be the voice of our community,” he said. “We’ve never had one of us represent New Jersey, so let’s go. This is another part of our campaign.”
Possibly achieving another LGBTQ milestone feels great, he said.
“It’s a big honor. I owe it to those of us who came before me who opened the door that I can walk through. I owe it to those who died in silence in the closet.”
Aside from being a voice in Washington for his queer community, there are additional issues Dafis said he wants to tackle. Among those are public health problems such as access to quality affordable healthcare, challenges pertaining to land use and economic development, and focusing on the nation’s “immigrant friends and neighbors.”
“We are a nation of immigrants,” he said. “I’m a first-generation Greek American. My parents are Greek immigrants who came here fleeing a dictatorship, a military take-over of their country.
“My parents came here for opportunity and because of the American dream, something that is becoming less and less possible today in America.”
Dafis related a story about a time when his father attended a Fourth of July celebration in Maplewood. He was watching the fireworks and became really emotional.
“I looked over at him, and I was like, ‘Dad, what’s going on? Why are you getting all swept up?’ And he said ‘Because I’m so proud to be an American and so proud of what this country offered your mom and I. And it breaks my heart to see what’s happening in America right now, the things that I fled from my own home to come here.’
“And that just really moved me, man,” Dafis continued. “And it really grounded me, and it further inspired me to run in this particular moment in time in our nation.”
In addition to Dafis tossing his hat into the ring for a Congressional run if Sherrill ends up moving into the New Jersey governor’s mansion, the Nov. 4 election races that could break the “rainbow ceiling,” as one candidate put it, include:
- Kyler Dineen, who is running for the state’s General Assembly. Dineen says he believes he is the first openly nonbinary person to run for higher office in state history.
- Dan Crisafulli, who is running for the at-large seat on the Summit Common Council. He said he would be the first openly LGBTQ councilman in the city’s history. The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, an organization that focuses on increasing the number of out elected officials at all levels of government, has endorsed him.
- Daniel Israel, who is running for councilman representing Ward E in Jersey City. He said he would be the city’s first elected openly gay councilman, noting that Jersey City did have an openly gay councilman, Ray Vasquez, but he was appointed. Israel quipped that he could be “breaking a rainbow ceiling, so to speak.”
- Jim McGreevey, who is running for mayor of Jersey City. The former governor would be the city’s first openly gay mayor.
