NEWARK - They fought a lot of wars up here in the North Ward going back to the prime Steve Adubato years, and before, when the troubles prompted mobilization of the National Guard into Newark and now, with a president trying to short-circuit the mail-in ballot process, persistently and arbitrarily threatening to take over the National Guard and use it to militarize America's cities, absent all historical context, where feds in masks put the mayor here in handcuffs because he sought information about human beings in a private detention center in his city, the allies of U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill - in particular the North Ward Democratic Organization - define a critical battlefront in the intensifying 2025 Gubernatorial Election.

Introduced by an impassioned state Senator M. Teresa Ruiz (D-29), Sherrill took the stage to a standing ovation in a crowd that included Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, North Ward Democratic Committe Chairman Sammy Gonzalez, Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin (D-29), Assemblywoman Shanique Speight (D-29), Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin, Essex County Commissioner Wayne Richardson, Newark North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, Newark At-Large Councilman Carlos Gonzalez, and DiVincenzo COS Phil Alagia.

"We've got a responsibility," said the congresswoman. "We've got a fight on our hands. And don't let anybody tell you in these times, with this fight, that your vote doesn't matter. Don't let anybody take away that power from you. Don't let anybody suggest you should sit this one out or that it's not something you should engage in because that is somebody who is trying to take away your power."

SHERRILL ALSO ADDRESSED THE CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSINATION, AMERICAN FREE SPEECH, AND HER AFFORDABILITY AGENDA HERE:

The county with the biggest plurality of registered Democrats in New Jersey, Essex, as usual, is complex. It survived a rowdy Democratic Primary in which Ras Baraka, the mayor, proved Sherrill's most competitive rival, finally placing second, and demonstrating organizational cross-purposes, some of which contain deep roots.

But, "This is not a fractured county at this time," Democratic State Committee Chairman LeRoy Jones told InsiderNJ on his way into a packed rally for Sherrill at the Flamboyan to kick off the first day of mail-in voting.

"That was a family feud," Jones added. "We all come together when there's purpose and there's principle."

Indeed, Baraka endorsed Sherrill earlier this month, to take on Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciatttarelli, who has the backing of President Trump.

As for Trump's most recent comments about mail-in voting, flummoxing MAGA harvesters - “The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting. They went to all mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections, and we can’t have that. When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections, because that’s what that means, so that played a big factor also" - Jones said: "I don't respond to anything that this president has to say."

In her introduction of Sherrill, Ruiz let the voters in her community here know the importance of the battle for her friend and political ally, Sherrill. "We're going to be sure our children know the American History built with everybody in this room," said the senator. "Let me tell you why we're all here - because we cannot afford to lose."

DiVincenzo stood at the podium with the microphone in his hand as Sherrill entered the room. "The reason he can't be governor is he's not loyal to us he's going to be loyal to Donald Trump," the county executive said of Ciattarelli.

The jaded loyalties of yesteryear faded in the brutal glare of these final four weeks.

In this political hotbed, key to the county party's power base, with Party Chairman Jones proclaiming Newark ready to go and deliver the election for Sherrill, they have something to prove here, Adubato acolytes, specialists in organization, who got behind Sherrill in the primary and won statewide, mostly because of the candidate herself (in a challenging time for party-building), but lost the county to Baraka. Together they soldier, beginning the process of mail-in balloting, behind Ruiz, the veteran lawmaker, public face of the operation now, the steadfast buildup to the Democratic nominee, personification of her beloved New Jersey city on the frontline of a fight bigger than a ward, bigger than a county, and clearly, for the senator, and for Sherrill, nothing less than the size of their country.