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CNN Live At Daybreak

Newark Mayoral Race Election Today

Aired May 14, 2002 - 06:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's jump to New Jersey now. Voters in Newark are heading to the polls to elect their mayor in one of the closest and nastiest races of the city's history.

Reporter Anthony Johnson of CNN affiliate WABC joins us now live from Newark.

Good morning to you.

ANTHONY JOHNSON, WABC-TV REPORTER: And good morning to you, Carol.

We're outside of the Essex Plaza (ph) here in downtown Newark, New Jersey. Voters already going to the polls. The polls opened here at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

And as you said, it is a very nasty race featuring two men. The current mayor, Sharpe James, he's been in office for four terms, and a man who wants to take his place, Cory Booker, a young city councilmen, 33 years old, but he's definitely making a political name for himself in this race -- this race between both candidates. They had to raise $5 million. That's more money than they've ever spent here in the city of Newark in any sort of a mayor's race.

And the current mayor says this is not a race about generations, but what's interesting about that is that Sharpe James actually won his first election back 33 years ago when Cory Booker was born. So there is a generation gap here. But the question today is whether or not, according to Sharpe James, whether or not Cory Booker is confident to run the city.

So it has turned into a very nasty race where a lot of political shenanigans have allegedly been happening, and they've been talking about bringing in federal mediators to -- monitors to go ahead and watch today's election as people go to the polls this morning.

COSTELLO: Give us an example of a nasty shenanigan that has been pulled.

JOHNSON: Well we understand that signs have been pulled down. We just had one young man walk up to us from the Cory Booker campaign alleging that one of their people was arrested last night. So it's all kinds of things that they've alleged -- alleged, rather, that have been going on, taking place here in Newark, New Jersey as they set up for this race.

You know it's interesting, a few months ago nobody would have expected this. Everybody was saying that it looked like Sharpe James had this thing hands down, that he was going to take a fifth term in office without any problems. But in the last couple of months, Cory Booker has really picked up steam.

COSTELLO: It must be unusual for federal people to come in to a local election just to monitor things. How unusual is that?

JOHNSON: Well it's extremely unusual, but the allegation was made. Cory Booker apparently made the allegation that he believed that some of the Sharpe James people were coming around trying to harass some of his people, tearing down signs and going after some of his people. So he called in the federal monitors, and they are indeed here this morning to watch what's going to be happening at the polling places.

COSTELLO: You mean like going after them physically?

JOHNSON: That's what we've been hearing that they've been actually going after them physically. Like we said, last night there was an allegation of somebody being arrested over here, that one of the Cory Booker supporters was arrested by somebody that apparently worked for Sharpe James in the police department. So all kind of allegations, some of them may be true, others we don't know if they are true, but just all kinds of funny business going on down here in this campaign.

COSTELLO: That is crazy. And isn't there a third candidate, too, sort of mixing things up as well?

JOHNSON: There is a third candidate. He is a businessman -- a local businessman, Dwayne Smith. Now the interesting thing here about this election, if none of the candidates win 50 percent, there will still have to be a runoff. That will be slated for June. So if today the voters don't decide who's going to be the next mayor for sure, we'll have to deal with this for another couple of weeks, and it'll probably get nastier than you could ever imagine.

COSTELLO: We'll keep following it then. Thank you.

Anthony Johnson reporting live for us. And thanks to WABC for providing Anthony to us.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

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