Make a Run for It! Resources and What You Need to Know (WYNTK)

Contributed by Amara Willey. 

Running for office in Hunterdon County – WYNTK: County Clerk Mary Melfi is your go-to resource. Here’s a link to a page with tons of helpful information. Mary has a very extensive packet of information at her office for political hopefuls. She is also willing to sit down with a potential candidate and go over what needs to happen to get on the ballot. She would like to see more women take on governing roles. “Women bring a totally different dynamic to politics. I think women are more analytical, solution-oriented, and think outside of box,” she says.

• Important date! Monday, April 1st — deadline for all Partisan Candidates to File Petitions for the June Primary. State Candidates file with the State Division of Elections, County Candidates with the County Clerk’s office and Local Candidates with their Municipal Clerk. (N.J.S.A.19:23-14)

Running for office in Pennsylvania – WYNTK: The Pennsylvania Department of State provides a wealth of information on this site: Running For Office

• Important dates:
  • February 19 — First day to circulate and file nomination petitions
  • March 12 — Last day to circulate and file nomination petitions

Candidate training resources

General

• Emerge is a candidate training program for Democratic women:
• Moms Running is a coaching business run by Clinton Councilwoman Rielly Karsh and others to help mothers who want to get into politics
• National Democratic Training Committee runs a self-study program https://www.traindemocrats.org/home/
• Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics has their nonpartisan candidate training program, Ready to Run scheduled for March 15-16
• She Should Run offers free online courses and an incubator for women considering a run for office. Have a younger woman interested? They even offer a parents or mentor’s program for activities to do with them. https://www.sheshouldrun.org/incubator

Pennsylvania

• Bucks County Dems will be having a forum at their next meeting on how to complete the petition to become a candidate. http://bucksdemocrats.org/. Working Families Party will be sponsoring training on March 30 for Democratic candidates that have submitted petitions (Deadline: March 12). http://workingfamilies.org/
• Training is planned but not yet scheduled for using Votebuilder and specific topics like how to present a stump speech (Sign up for email lists with Solebury Democrats, Bucks County Democrats and check Helen Tai’s Facebook and website for these upcoming topics).

New Jersey

• In conjunction with the National Democratic training, New Jersey Democrats are planning candidate trainings on March 23rd and 24th. The 23rd is in Morris County and the 24th is in Bergen. The location has not been confirmed yet. https://njdems.org/our-events/