Eagle's Voice

On Sep 25th, 2025, I had the opportunity to interview Councilman Ira Guilford before his Jersey City Council At-large election that took place on December 2, 2025. For convenience, you can listen to the audio and watch some of the video through this link here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NOlQFqCfBo92sJo9lZpn3C4BDU07GfeZ?usp=sharing While I was asking questions about his campaign, his running mate, Mussab Ali joined in and allowed me to ask him a question. At that moment, I didn’t know much about him, and not being ready for a question, I didn’t ask him one, but ever since then, I kept on seeing social media posts about his campaign. Now, with his election only a week away, it’s time to take a more detailed look at Mussab Ali to figure out what his motives are, his backstory, and the political office he is running for.

Mussab Ali, born 1997, is a Pakistani-American educator, activist, and most importantly, politician. He moved from Lahore in 2000 and has lived in Jersey City ever since. In 2019, he graduated Rutgers University with a double major in economics and biology. He then got his Masters in global affairs at Tsinghua University as a Schwarzman Scholar, and in 2020, he enrolled in Harvard Law School. During his time there, he was elected co‑president of the student government and also served on the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors. He then graduated from Harvard Law School in 2023.

Mussab Ali first started his political career by running for Jersey City School Board in 2016, but sadly losing his race. However, in November of 2017, he started off strong, winning a seat as a Jersey City Board of Education member by less than 60 votes. He became the youngest elected official in Jersey City history, and became the youngest muslim elected official in America at the time. Ali went on to be re-elected in November of 2018 with nearly 23,000 votes, and was elected Board President in 2021.
Sadly, in that same year, Ali announced that he had been diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma and would continue working during treatment. After battling with cancer for months, he announced that he was in complete remission in August of 2021. Ali described the excruciating experience, “These last few months have been some of the most difficult to endure during my lifetime. After eight months of battling this disease and 12 rounds of chemotherapy, I am proud to announce that I am in complete remission. I am extremely thankful to everyone who has supported me throughout this journey.” (Zeitlinger from NJ.com, reported in 2021).
“As a loyal son of Jersey City and a Muslim American, I felt I had to stand up for my hometown and all Americans who lived there,’’ said Ali. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, both his father and mother had experienced hate just for being muslim, with his own mother not even being able to leave the house because of her hijab for a month or so. This amount of bigotry and hate sparked something inside of Ali, and this want for change and reform led to his activism later in life. After his term ended in 2022 as Jersey City Board of Education President, he decided to run as Jersey City mayor. In 2024 he filed the paperwork to run in the Jersey City mayoral election, and his campaign ran on making Jersey City more affordable, making public transit more affordable and reliable, and focused on civil rights. Some of his proposals included the expansion of affordable housing, improvement on local bus services, and tight anti-corruption rules so that politics were fair and safe. He has been compared to Zohran Mamdani in his policies, and the similarities are there.

Sadly, he lost his election as Jersey City mayor, and during the time of my interview with Ira Guilford, he showed up and was able to say a few words before we moved onto another topic. I do have to say, he was very genuine. Even when the cameras weren’t on him, and when he wasn’t expecting anyone from the public to ask him about his campaign, he was cordial, clear in his wording, and eager to answer any questions. His ability to connect to anybody is one of his best qualities, and I feel like this is a breath of fresh air compared to how hard it is to really get into contact with some politicians nowadays, even with social media.
Onto his most recent campaign, that being for New Jersey’s 8th Congressional District. He is running against Incumbent Rob Menendez, and Ali is frustrated with the corporate Democrat. For his campaign, he is attempting to flip the script on the establishment Democrats, running on progressive policies to abolish ICE, grant medicare for all, and ban military aid to Israel. He is in the position to accept the Political Integrity Pledge which includes taking no corporate PAC (Political Action Committee) money, supporting a stock trading ban in Congress, banning former members from lobbying, and supporting the overturning of Citizens United case, which uncapped PAC donations for political candidates. He has been endorsed by countless organizations, such as AIPAC out of NJ, and has been gaining momentum from fed-up voters in the district who feel as if Menendez hasn’t been doing a good job at truly representing them.

The Democratic Primary is set to take place on June 2nd, 2026, but he is projected to lose the election as of right now, with 42% projected to vote for Rob Menendez, 27% for Mussab Ali, and around 31% are undecided. The polling website did also show the uncertainty of the race, “If the Democratic primary for NJ-8 was held today, incumbent Rob Menendez would be favored over progressive challenger Mussab Ali,” the polling memo states. “But … on topics from Israel to healthcare, Menendez is taking positions that don’t align with his constituents.” (New Jersey Globe). Many voters in the area are starting to take Ali’s stance on important issues, and even though Menendez has a favorable lead, this race is far from over for Ali.

One last important thing that was noticed from both the interviews and the research is that many people don’t usually get in touch or involved with their politicians. The polling site only had 418 or so democratic voters in the area in the polls, and that number is sad compared to the huge number of eligible adult voters in that area. Mussab Ali was surprisingly easy to reach, and with his team sharing similar qualities, it’s very applaudable in my opinion.

Overall, Mussab Ali is a survivor, both of cancer and hate, and he was still able to overcome both. He shoots for the stars, is an accomplished politician, and is running on a progressive platform for the Democratic Primary. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to talk with him and his team in late September 2025, and am looking forward to great things when it comes to Mussab Ali and his team.