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CNN Live At Daybreak

Nasty Mayor Race Ends in Newark

Aired May 15, 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: Voters in Newark, New Jersey have elected Mayor Sharpe James to an unprecedented fifth term. The race was so nasty that federal prosecutors posted observers at the polls.

Reporter Anthony Johnson of CNN affiliate WABC joins us live from Newark with more on the election.

Wow, it's finally over!

ANTHONY JOHNSON, WABC-TV REPORTER: It is finally over, and everybody here in Newark just happy the results have come in. Sharpe James pulled off a rather impressive victory, pulling out 53 percent of the vote total. His opponent, Cory Booker, got 46 percent of the total votes in last night's election. Of course when the concession speech came in, Cory Booker said he will continue to fight. As for Sharpe James, he said that he was going to go ahead and continue to move Newark forward. And he says that we all must come together here in the city of Newark as a family and continue to work for Newark's progress.

Once again, Sharpe James got 53 percent of the vote total. That's about some 28,000 votes here in Newark. Cory Booker got about 24,000 votes. It looks like the person who won this election last night or Sharpe James was able to go ahead and get his base to come out and go to the polls yesterday. And I tell you what, even though there are some 121,000 registered voters here in Newark, 53,000 of them turned out to the polls, but a lot of people think that number was pretty big and they're very happy about the turnout in yesterday's election.

COSTELLO: Anthony, those federal observers were posted at polls throughout the city. What did they do when they were there? And what were they afraid would happen?

JOHNSON: Well, there had been all kind of allegations of shenanigans. Police interrogating or harassing some of the Cory Booker voters, telling them where to go vote, what to vote for and who to vote for. So these folks came over here -- the federal monitors came over here to the city of Newark and they just watched at the polls. Actually, they say that there were a lot of reports of incidents but nothing that they could find that was solid. So it looks like even though there were a lot of allegations being tossed around, actually on both sides, nothing ended up happening in yesterday's election. COSTELLO: Were there any arrests yesterday revolving around this election?

JOHNSON: There was nothing serious. There was one report that one of the supporters for Cory Booker may have been involved in a reported incident, but nobody's really talking about that so far this morning or saying anything about that. But you know once again, with all of the allegations that were being tossed around, things seemed to go pretty peaceful and no problems were reported that appear to be very serious.

COSTELLO: Well we're glad to hear that. Anthony Johnson of WABC joining us live this morning, thank you.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

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