Rival Rahway Democrats Rally Supporters Ahead of Tuesday Primary
Each side hosted a congressional candidate at Sunday events.
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Chris Howell | June 1, 2026
Rahway Democrats held competing events on Sunday to urge supporters to vote in one of the few contested primary races in the region. The mayor is running unopposed, but a challenger is seeking to unseat one of the three incumbents running for three at-large city council seats.
Council members Jeffrey Brooks and Jeremy Mojica — along with incumbent Joanna Miles, who was not present Sunday — say voters should stick with a team that has worked for years to transform the city. Their opponent, Andrew Garcia Phillips, says the city needs an independent voice to shake up a council that acts as a rubber stamp for the mayor’s agenda.
Mayor Raymond Giacobbe Jr. and his incumbent ticket rallied outside City Hall with Rebecca Bennett, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary for the 7th Congressional District seat, according to a recent Insider NJ/StimSight poll. The November race to unseat Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr. is expected to be one of the most closely watched midterm contests in the country.
A few blocks away, Garcia Phillips held a backyard rally with Michael Roth, another candidate in the NJ-7 Democratic primary, hosted by a supporter.
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The dual events underscored a split inside Rahway’s Democratic Party that has grown sharper in the final days before Tuesday’s primary election. Voters will choose three of the four candidates to advance on the Democratic ticket in November. Garcia Phillips is asking his supporters to vote only for him, a bullet-voting strategy designed to consolidate support behind a single candidate rather than split it across the full slate.
In the backdrop was a controversy that erupted over the weekend after Garcia Phillips posted a video on Facebook.
“Eventually, an issue like a data center is going to come to Rahway, an issue that’s not a simple yes or no, where a rubber stamp will not meet the moment,” Garcia Phillips said in the video.
The Rahway Democratic Committee responded Saturday with a statement saying there are “no plans, no proposals, and no discussions regarding a data center coming to the City of Rahway.” The statement went on to accuse Garcia Phillips of manufacturing a controversy to earn votes. Giacobbe reposted the statement and repeated the denial in an interview after Sunday’s rally.
Rahway’s incumbent Democrats held a primary canvassing event with congressional candidate Rebecca Bennett outside City Hall. From left: City Council Vice President Jeremy Mojica, Rebecca Bennett, Mayor Raymond Giacobbe, City Council President Jeffrey Brooks. (The Central Jerseyan)
Democratic city council candidate Andrew Garcia Phillips (left) and congressional candidate Michael Roth (right) at a backyard canvassing event. (Lisa Vandever / Indivisible Rahway)
“There’ll be no data center in the city of Rahway,” Giacobbe said. “There’s been no discussions, there’s been no plans. Any mention of a data center — it’s just false.”
The mayor went further, saying the issue is not something he or the council supports, citing concerns about electricity and water consumption. He added that he would sign an ordinance banning data centers in the city if the council put one forward, a step Perth Amboy is reportedly considering.
Garcia Phillips did not claim in his video that a data center was imminent or planned. He framed it as a hypothetical. High-pressure development issues, he argued, require a council willing to push back rather than go along.
Data centers have become a flashpoint across Central Jersey in recent months. North of Rahway, residents in Kenilworth have mounted an active fight against a proposed facility, and protesters recently blocked a data center in New Brunswick, to Rahway’s south.
At the Indivisible gathering, Garcia Phillips kept the same theme.
“They work as a team all the time, they kind of vote the same all the time, and that’s kind of what I’ve been fighting against,” he said, referring to the incumbents. “There are some issues where a rubber stamp just isn’t enough.”
Roth, who emphasized door-knocking as the core of his own campaign, drew an explicit parallel between the two insurgent bids.
“Your campaign is what this campaign is about,” Roth told Garcia Phillips. “It’s about the people. Not being influenced, not reporting to anybody but the people and constituents who we represent.”
At City Hall, Giacobbe acknowledged he was campaigning hard despite running without opposition. “My teammates — and we’re a team — we win together, we lose together, we fight together,” he said. “It’s more than a team. It’s family.”
Brooks and Mojica both addressed the rally, emphasizing the importance of county partnerships and the need for federal representation in the district. Neither addressed the data center controversy. When asked for comment after the event, both declined.
On the question of transparency, one of the central themes Garcia Phillips has raised, Giacobbe pointed to steps his administration has taken at council meetings. He said his business administrator or chief of staff now walks through the full agenda at each meeting, explaining votes to the public rather than simply reading items by title, a practice he said the city adopted after hearing residents say they wanted to understand better what the council was doing.
“We televise our meetings as well,” Giacobbe said. “Other municipalities do not go to that length to make sure that their meetings are televised or advertised or the agenda is explained thoroughly.”
Polls open Tuesday at 6 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.
Editor’s note: The Central Jerseyan is free to read and supported by advertising. If you value this kind of local reporting and want to help sustain it, you can become a citizen supporter on Patreon. Your contribution helps fund continued coverage of local government, schools, and community issues.