Sadaf Jaffer has always felt drawn to public service, but she didn’t think that would ever lead to a term as mayor of her hometown, Montgomery Township.
She is now the first female South Asian mayor of a New Jersey municipality and the first female Muslim mayor in the state. She is also believed to be the first female Muslim mayor, female Pakistani-American mayor and first female South Asian-American mayor first in the nation, according to Religionnews.com.
Jaffer, 36, grew up in Chicago and was raised by her parents — her mother an immigrated from Pakistan and her father from Yemen. Jaffer and her husband moved to New Jersey after they both got jobs working at Princeton University, where she studies South Asian social media as a post-doctorate fellow and teaches courses about Islam in South Asia and South Asian American film and literature.
The couple settled in Montgomery Township in 2012 — a Somerset County town of about 23,000 residents, 33% of whom are Asian.
Jaffer began attending Township Committee meetings regularly and she quickly realized that she wasn’t seeing herself in the elected officials that were supposed to be a proxy for her voice on local issues.
“I wasn’t seeing my values represented in politics very much, and that’s when I started to think about running for office,” Jaffer said of the then exclusively Republican governing body.
Jaffer began to take her interest in politics more seriously after attending the inaugural Emerge New Jersey conference, run by a nonpartisan organization that seeks to help get women elected to office. Jaffer credits the conference with teaching her the ins and outs of running for political office and helping her make many valuable connections.
She launched a write-in campaign in 2016, and despite being unsuccessful that year, she tried again the following year on the Democratic ticket and won. In 2019, she was appointed to the position as mayor by her fellow committee members.
“I’m so happy to be an example of how our system is very democratic and if you run you can win,” Jaffer said.
In the short amount of time she has been involved in Montgomery politics the committee has gone from having its first Democrat elected to the committee in eight years to being controlled by the Democratic party, with three Democratic committee members and two Republican members.
Jaffer credits this change to a swath of grassroots momentum that occurred during the 2017 election. That year, voter turn out increased by 20% from the previous year’s election, and had doubled since the last midterm election, Jaffer said.
“Since Marvin (Schuldiner) and I won decisively in November, thereby taking the majority of the township committee and appointing Sadaf as mayor for this year, she has done a good job representing what the Democratic majority on the committee wanted to accomplish,” said Deputy Mayor Catherine Gural.
When Jaffer was first campaigning in 2017 she noticed that a lot of the people in the township were unmotivated or didn’t know about the local election process.
During the campaign, she was also the subject of a negative mailer that called her ideas “dangerous” and “extreme.”
Jaffer said their strategy backfired. Many of her supporters defended her and she was able to focus on how people were happy to see someone from a new, under-represented group in office.
She used this challenge as an opportunity to dig into one of her favorite elements of civic engagement, education.
“I really just wanted to get people engaged and feeling empowered,” Jaffer said.
Her biggest hope is that township residents have felt that their votes have mattered and have seen the importance of participating in the electoral process. Jaffer now regularly hears from residents on new initiatives taking place in town.
She started the Montgomery Mosaic project, a monthly group discussion where residents can come together to talk about different topics.
In the past, the group has discussed Islamaphobia and racism, but the group has also had more lighthearted events like intercultural holiday parties.
Jaffer is working on creating more business development within town and trying to increase the transparency in government, holding open office hours so residents can stop by with their questions and concerns and working to create clearer communication from town hall.
“Part of the reason why I wanted to get involved in politics is because people are very cynical about politics and it doesn’t have to be that way,” Jaffer said. “Absolutely normal people can be involved in politics. Politicians are just supposed to be your neighbors and you should hold them to that level.”
Olivia Rizzo may be reached at orizzo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LivRizz. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us.nj.com/tips.
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