Cory Booker vs. Sharpe James

The documentary Street Fight follows the mayoral race in Newark, NJ between city councilman Corey Booker and incumbent mayor Sharpe James. Both campaigns engaged in a bitter election fight to ensure victory for their candidate. By doing so, they employed tactics which can be viewed either as positive, negative, or neutral.

Cory Booker

Both campaigns tried to focus on the positive aspects of their candidates. James ran on experience as a city council-member and in the mayor's office. His campaign touted the progress Newark had experienced under his administration. James had enacted reforms which replaced low income housing in the city, a sign of progress in the desperately poor city. Booker, on the other hand, campaigned as a new, fresher face in Newark politics compared to the long serving mayor. As mayor, Booker  promised he would bring real reform and change. His campaign style involved personally going from door to door of multiple neighborhoods in Newark to gather support.

Sharpe James

The negative side of the campaign overwhelmingly came from the James campaign. The James campaign used the police force to harass supporters of Booker, from threatening to shut down the business' of Booker supporters to taping the phones at the Booker campaign headquarters. During a rally for James, security intimidated the documentary camera man and evicted him from the event by claiming he didn't have permit. When a police raid on a strip club caught the Booker campaigns chief of staff outside the building, the info was leaked to the press by the James campaign, who called it disgraceful. The race also turned ugly personally when Booker was accused by James of being a "white Republican" which mainly implied that Cory was not "black enough" to connect with the city's black population. The Cory campaign struggled greatly as a result of these corrupt tactics by Mayor James. For its part, the Booker campaign at one point used an allegation that Mayor James had frequented that same strip club.

Despite the negativity of the campaign, both sides also used more neutral tactics in the election. Traditional rallies were held, as well as fund raising events. Both campaigns followed a policy of "If you feed 'em then you can lead them". This essentially means legal bribery of voters by hosting events which "gifts", mostly food. were given to people.