well with more than two and a half years to go the state officially has its first candidate vying to be the next Governor Jersey city mayor Steve Phillip formally launched his campaign this week in what's expected to be a crowded field of democratic Challengers now his announcement was no surprise but the timing caught some off guard leaving political insiders to wonder if other candidates will start tossing their hats in the ring senior political correspondent David Cruz reports Jersey city mayor Steve Phillips announcement did not set the brush fires in his City or around the state yesterday but the first Democrat to jump into the governor's race will gladly embrace the symbolism because if you want to win the horse race you might as well come out on fire absolutely that's why I think you know if somebody like Philip jumping out early he can now really make a clear and aggressive case for his candidacy and do it openly he has an open uh plane right now and uh whereas the others are a little facing a more complicated picture Bergen Record columnist Charlie style notes that the other potential candidates from both parties are facing their own elections before 2025.

Senators Mike Testa and John bramnik and representatives Mikey Cheryl and Josh gottheimer all facing voters before 2025 none publicly looking too hard at the governor's race sticking to something along the lines of we have to hold serve here in legislative district one and if the people of New Jersey you know want me after that to put my name in the Hat I will strongly consider it there is no doubt about that what I'm doing is I'm running for the Senate which is a four-year term but you call me the day after you know if hopefully I won my Senate term and I'll happen to discuss that then you have Newark mayor rasparaka and former Senate President Steve Sweeney the field is very likely to represent that wide a geographic scope the battle could then come down to who can get the party line from the most important County party organizations and getting out early may not have much of an impact on that for Philip probably will not get all the lines you're going to see a lot of regional candidates in this in this field and that's why I say it might not matter because you know if the crowd if the field is crowded enough then you can take a strong Hudson County base and that can really matter but that's just the way it's always been in Jersey right try for the line throw some money around to various County organizations and transact some support nowadays anybody can raise a million dollars from none of your business we promise to not coordinate donors this Philip acknowledges saying he'll take matching funds which limits his campaign budget to around seven and a half million dollars still the honest answer is I am sure as every campaign across this entire country you're going to have outside interests involved and people may like that and some people may not like that because you'll have issue advocacies regarding things that people care about right and then you'll have I'm sure people that you know disagree with it my job is to make sure that the seven and a half million dollars I control is done responsibly and to make sure that hopefully with the new laws that anybody's that involved in any other way discloses problems really what they're doing it's still over two years away but if you think that machinations aren't underway and that issue Advocates haven't already started to flood the state with money well you know better you may not see it on your TV cell phone or mailbox yet but Steve Philip was just the first official sign that the race is on I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news [Music]