Dr. Shereef Elnahal, a top Biden Administration official who served in Gov. Phil Murphy’s cabinet, has had some conversations about seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of New Jersey next year but is not expected to make any moves until after the 2024 election, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.
Elnahal became the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health in 2022 after serving as New Jersey Commissioner of Health and president/CEO of University Hospital in Newark.
He has taken no formal steps to seek public office, but has discussed the idea of running for governor with some allies, according to sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
While Elnahal is unknown to most New Jerseyans, he could find an opening if a federal judge abolishes organization lines and substantially changes how New Jersey elects its governors.
Without lines in a state that has public financing of gubernatorial campaigns with a 2-1 match that may be supplemented by super PACS, anything can happen.
Statewide primaries have been fought in two phases: a race among party insiders to award organization lines and a primary election in which registered Democrats get a say.
“If and when the lines go away, so does this first phase, which means there would be different paths for candidates who have been political outsiders and may be at a disadvantage in winning the game among insiders and county committees,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University.
Elnahal declined to comment on his interest in running for governor.
The son of two Egyptian-born physicians, the 38-year-old Elnahal grew up in Atlantic County before obtaining a degree in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University and a medical and business degree from Harvard.
He had worked in the Obama administration before Murphy tapped him to run the Department of Health in 2018.
Biden nominated Elnahal to his sub-cabinet post in March 2022; the U.S. Senate confirmed him, 66-23, with bipartisan support.
In 2017, more than 70% of the Democratic primary vote went to candidates who had never run for public office before: Murphy, a former ambassador who won 48.4% with the support of every county organization in the state, and former Deputy U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jim Johnson, who finished second with 21.9%.
Crowded fields allow candidates to win primaries with a relatively small number of votes: Tom Kean won an eight-candidate GOP gubernatorial primary with less than 31% of the vote in 1981; that same year, Jim Florio won the Democratic primary with 26% against twelve other candidates. There were no lines in that primary.
Three Democrats are already announced gubernatorial candidates: Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, former Senate President Steve Sweeney, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Other potential candidates, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) and Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, Senate President Nicholas Scutari, Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo, Montclair Mayor and NJEA President Sean Spiller, and Johnson are looking at the race.
If Elnahal were to run for governor and win, he would become the nation’s first Muslim governor, and the first physician to serve as New Jersey governor since William Newell held the post from 1857 to 1860.
