along with the governor's race this year seats in the assembly are also on the ballot with more candidates running to earn a spot in the legislature than in the last 40 years And it's the first time they'll enter a primary without the coveted so-called county line In Hudson County the civil war between the Democratic organization is ratcheting up as eight candidates battle for two assembly seats representing the area in November Senior political correspondent David Cruz takes a look In Hudson County where politics is always full contact the mayor of the county seat that's Jersey City is running for governor And he's doing it by poking the party bosses in the eye It's bad enough Steve Full was a vocal critic of the county line while it was being adjudicated out of existence last year But on top of that he's put together his own slate of candidates running against incumbents and partybacked candidates in more than half of the assembly districts up this fall Incumbent Jessica Ramirez was elected on the county line two years ago This year she's on the fullup slate a decision she said some insiders warned her against I'm proud to be on his slate And it does take courage right to not be part of the machine and to be not with the machine and and kind of be seen as a little bit of a rebel and especially down in Trenton as well where the machine is still going Jersey City City Councilman Yousef Salet is Ramirez's running mate He represents the Heights section of Jersey City now a big part of the retool 32nd district a diverse swath that includes all of Hoboken and much of downtown Jersey City You can't make this stuff up Like you have a Puerto Rican you have a Palestinian-American you have a Jewish guy running for governor Like nowhere else in this uh city or country is a story like that possible except in Jersey City In the days of the county line assembly primaries when they were contested were rarely competitive The race in the 32nd has three slates and the one unaffiliated with any gubanatorial candidate or party organization has the candidates with the highest name recognition Ravi Bala is the mayor of Hoboken a former councilman and congressional candidate and Katie Brennan who's been a housing and planning advocate for years in addition to taking on the Murphy administration in its earliest days We are not going to represent the interests of a county party We are not going to represent the interests of a political machine We are going to represent you the people who elected us to serve you That is what democracy looks like Democracy has never looked like that in the county of Hudson for as long as I've lived in this county which has been a quarter century Everything is new and not just for me because this is the first race post line There's a ton of competition kind of nobody knows what's happening And with a six-way race and you pick two math is complicated It's it's really the wild west The county dems are running candidates here too They couldn't schedule time to talk to us for this story though Crystal Fonka is a department director for the city of Jersey City and Jenny Puh runs the Hoboken Public Library Obviously this is a new world with no county line Right If I told you as recent as two years ago David that we were going to have a primary here in New Jersey that I actually had six Democrats running against each other you would think that I was all kinds of illicit substances Six candidates who mostly agree on the issues from immigration to affordable housing seeking the same two seats but taking three different routes I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News