“There are a lot of things to build on,” Fulop told POLITICO. “There are times when I feel like New Jersey can be a little more bold, to be honest with you.”

Over roughly 40 minutes recently at a cafe in Jersey City, Fulop offered broad outlines of his policy agenda while making the case that, as mayor of the state’s second-largest city, he is best positioned to replace Murphy in 2026.

He’s also the only one positioned to replace Murphy — at this point. But the Democratic field is expected to fill up the closer it gets to the election, with former Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester), Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-Bergen) and Mikie Sherrill (D-Essex) widely considered contenders for the party nomination.

Fulop explained that he entered the race 2 1/2 years before the election partly to build grassroots support for his candidacy. For anyone hoping to win a gubernatorial primary, gaining county party support is critical to winning the coveted “line,” or preferred ballot position with organization-backed candidates.

He rejected the idea that his early entrance is a strategic move to secure that party support and try to box out other candidates, but acknowledged he may have to run “off the line” in some areas of the state. He also acknowledge missteps in the run-up to the 2017 gubernatorial election, when he and Sweeney were expected to be front-runners but both quickly dropped out as Murphy unexpectedly locked up party backing.

“I made some structural mistakes as I looked at the governor’s race then, relying only on the chairs and the structure that exists from the top down. And it was a little bit outside my comfort zone at that point, but I was convinced — and convinced myself simultaneously — that that’s probably the only way to do it, and it was a mistake,” Fulop said.

A pledge to focus on substance

His focus now, he said, is not only building up grassroots support but also putting together detailed ideas on how he’d govern. Fulop said he expects to issue policy papers later in the year offering “concrete” detail of his agenda.

“I think the Democratic primary base rewards you for substantive policies. And the goal is to run a campaign that’s not just going to be kind of the platitudes of ‘This is what I think about women’s reproductive rights’ and a soundbite,” he said.

In broad terms and in response to questions about current policies — or lack of them — Fulop gave hints at what his agenda may look like. Some of that would build off what he’s done in Jersey City, he said, such as building housing and raising the minimum wage.

The city was the first in the state to raise the hourly minimum to $15, in 2016, and last year boosted it to $20 for municipal workers. The state, by contrast, is on a path under Murphy to reaching $15 an hour next year.

Fulop did not put a dollar figure on what he thinks the state wage should be.

“It should be higher than $15, I can tell you that,” he said. “That needs to be reopened in another conversation because I think that New Jersey needs to be more at the forefront of that.”

The progressive think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective agrees. Senior policy analyst Peter Chen said the current wage law has too many carve outs — such as agricultural and seasonal workers, who are on a different time table — that hit the lower- and middle-class, especially during inflation.

“Aiming for $20, and maybe even above, is a reasonable push,” he said. “But I think eliminating the exemptions is just as important because there are so many groups that are carved out and so many wages that are depressed.”

New Jersey’s minimum wage is among the highest in the country, but there appears to be a nascent push among Democrats besides Fulop to go beyond $15 an hour. In New York, for example, progressives have written a bill raising the hourly minimum to $21.25 by 2027.

In New Jersey, $15 an hour is already outdated in some sectors. The New Jersey Business and Industry Association said “most businesses” have been paying above the current minimum of $14.13 an hour because of labor shortages and workforce demands brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the trade group is not exactly backing the idea of raising the wage.

“Small businesses are also challenged by increasing inflation and rising costs,” spokesperson Bob Considine said. “At a time when we still see small business closures on just about a daily basis, and with another year of no small business relief in the budget amid the highest business tax and regulatory burdens in the nation, it’s important to recognize that every dollar does count for these folks.”

But even a higher minimum wage doesn’t get families too far in New Jersey because the state, like all others, severely lacks affordable housing.

While that is a complex problem to solve, Fulop said one promising start would be resurrecting the state Council on Affordable Housing. The agency was responsible for setting municipal housing requirements, among other things, but the state Supreme Court declared it “moribund” and non-functioning after many years of stalled work and lawsuits.

“You’ve got to reestablish COAH. You can’t let the courts go through this,” Fulop said.

The Fair Share Housing Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, disagrees that the council should return. It pointed to a recent report showing that, even without the council, that the number of affordable homes in New Jersey has nearly doubled since the court’s 2015 ruling.

“Despite this tremendous progress, New Jersey is still facing a housing crisis that makes our state unaffordable for working families, especially Black and Brown families,” spokesperson Martina Manicastri said. “Reviving COAH means going back to a failed system that through delays and political manipulation, enabled towns to underproduce affordable housing.”

Jersey City has drawn some attention for its approach to housing, such as the redevelopment of Holland Gardens.

Fulop argues that his experience working with the state’s programs at the local level gives him a unique understanding of how to deal with housing “because we’re dealing with the first level of government.”