NEWARK, New Jersey (WABC) — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka believes it is time for him to make the move from the mayor’s office to the governor’s office.

“Being in charge of Newark for over a decade, you can see a lot of things we’ve been able to accomplish, but not for as many people as we wanted to accomplish it for,” Baraka said. “I think in the governor’s office, you can do a lot more for people across the state of New Jersey who witnessed in our party the same issues that we have from housing to violence to Medicaid to Medicare to health care.”

In his 11 years as mayor of Newark, the city has seen a tremendous growth spurt – the city skyline is etched with new businesses that moved in and new partnerships have brought more jobs.

“We’ve reduced crime, we’ve changed the lead service lines, we went up twice in our Moody’s financial rating in the city, we’ve turned people’s Section 8 vouchers into mortgages,” Baraka said.

Under his leadership, Newark Public Schools are back under local control and flourishing.

As governor, he wants to control costs across the board to make living more affordable.

“We have too many school districts, we have more school districts than cities, and we have too many cities, more cities than California, which is eight times our size,” Baraka said. “And so it’s incredibly inefficient and we’re paying two or three times for similar services or same services that we could combine and reduce our costs.”

He has multi-pronged plan to address housing, which includes a capital fund for affordable housing, subsidized affordable home ownership, tax relief for home owners, a cap on rent increases, and regulating investment firms that impact housing and raising filing fees for evictions.

On higher education, Baraka says he will push for free community college and partner universities with private sector leaders to recruit and retain local talent.

Some critics called his recent arrest outside the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center a political stunt.

“I was down there every day, if I wanted to do a political stunt, I could have done it at 7:00 in the morning, I’m there every day, 7 o’clock, when I was there earlier that day with the ICE agents out there in the front,” he said.

He was asked if he would try to have it shut down as governor.

“Well, I think what we should try to do as governor is to make sure that we don’t have private prisons in New Jersey,” Baraka said.

There are six Democrats and five Republicans in the running for New Jersey governor. Eyewitness News will profile a candidate for governor each day this week.

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Hundreds lined Haddon Avenue in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Thursday night for the annual Pride Parade, with all the colors and feelings of pride on full display.

“It’s awesome, it’s beautiful, it’s what Pride is,” said Lauren Smith from Voorhees.

The parade featured bands, floats, entertainment and participants of the two and four-legged variety.

“This is our second year coming. We came last year and had an absolute blast, so we’re back again,” said Gracie Broglin from West Deptford.

Randy Teague is the mayor of Haddon Township.

“It means that everyone is welcome, we’re an inclusionary community and we accept everybody,” says Teague.

For many, this night is a chance to be accepted.

“It just makes us feel very welcome and feel comfortable and safe together,” said Dejenee Mathis from Marlton.

Emily Munsick came out with her wife and two little girls.

“It’s really nice that this is here, they look around and they see, ‘Oh, two moms, OK, I have the same thing,’ so it’s important to have that community,” Munsick said.

This is the fifth year for the Haddon Township Pride Parade. Last year, more than 3,000 people marched in the parade and organizers said this year was even bigger.

Brendan Slavin is on the Board for the Haddon Township Equity Initiative, which sponsors the parade.

“This year we actually are expecting about 4,000 (people) and we’re about 30% larger on the participant count, businesses, local businesses that came in,” Slavin said.

This year’s theme is “Choose Joy,” a message Slavin and many others hope will march on during this month of Pride and beyond.

“Joy is something that isn’t given to you. So it’s something the world can’t take from you either. So in the world, you can choose to be angry, you can choose to be upset with everything, you can choose all this political climate stuff, just choose joy,” Slavin said. “That’s something you can protect, something that spreads easily, too. So just choose joy.”

The National Weather Service forecast calls for a hot and increasingly humid day Thursday, with high temperatures climbing into the mid- to upper 80s across most of New Jersey.

Some northern areas could experience their first 90-degree day of the year, though increasing high cloud cover may limit peak temperatures.

The Jersey Shore will remain slightly cooler, with temperatures mainly in the 70s.

The risk of thunderstorms increases Friday as a cold front approaches. Forecasters say there’s a potential for heavy downpours and isolated storms that could bring strong wind gusts.

The weekend will bring unsettled weather as the cold front moves through the state on Saturday.

Temperatures will be cooler, with highs ranging from the upper 60s to upper 70s.

Thunderstorms are likely Saturday, with a potential for brief heavy rainfall and isolated strong storm cells.

The National Weather Service notes some northern New Jersey zones are highlighted for enhanced rainfall potential.

Looking ahead, early next week appears active, with continued chances of showers and thunderstorms.

Sunday may bring more rain in some spots, with temperatures remaining near seasonal averages.

Uncertainty increases for the latter part of next week, with another potential storm system approaching by Wednesday.

Current weather radar

Generative AI was used to produce an initial draft of this story, which was reviewed and edited by NJ Advance Media staff.