Four of the six Democrats running for governor took on some tough questions this weekend during a candidate forum in New Brunswick moderated by Senator Andy Kim, sponsored by dozens of progressive labor and community groups who have signed the Build and Defend New Jersey challenge, pledging to at least partially based their endorsement decision on candidates willingness to fight back against the Trump agenda, among other things.

As senior political correspondent David Cruz reports, each of the gubernatorial hopefuls tried to present themselves as the best option to resist the president.

The person who is personifying change in New Jersey and became Senator Tom.

It's not often that you see a sitting U.S. senator hosting a gubernatorial candidates forum, but Andy Kim is not your average U.S. senator.

So much of this political season, the fall of the party line, the anti-Bush attitudes voters are feeling emanate from his court challenge of the past year.

Fittingly, he got the warmest reception at the new Jersey Citizen Action Build and Defend Forum at Rutgers in New Brunswick, which was attended by four Democrats Sean Spiller, Mikie Sherrill, Steve Philip and Ras Baraka.

Topics included immigration, Sherrill without explicitly using the term, promised to maintain so-called sanctuary state policies and fight against the expansion of detention facilities in the state.

So my AG would take this to court and enter into the case in the Third Circuit and fight hard to close these detention facilities in new Jersey.

We also need to make sure that our schools are protected, that Ice agents are not entering into our schools.

As the governor of New Jersey, I would protect our schools from Ice agents.

Spiller was asked about LGBTQ protections, especially for students in New Jersey schools.

We saw it right before the last election.

As I said before, there are plenty who quickly run away from issues.

And right here in this state, we saw folks who were worried about the election and they ran away from this issue, and we stood up and said, no, while you're talking about and they're talking about parental rights and trying to frame it in that way, we know it's about safety.

It's about making sure every person in this state is safe.

On the subject of recent changes to state ballots and bills like the Open Public Records Act and ballot reforms, Baraka called on rank and file Democrats to organize beyond the political establishment and ultimately beyond their own comfort zones.

These legislators are scared.

They know they're not going to get reelected.

They know these county bosses, are going to tell them what to do.

They're going to take money from them.

They don't have their own organization.

And without their support, they can't win anything.

And people in this election, without the support of the county bosses, they can't win anything.

Answering a question about issues on which the candidates may have evolved, Fulop told audiences the story about how he was supporting Tammy Murphy for Senate before he changed his mind, a move which many felt spelled doom for the first lady's candidacy.

We've built a very large grassroots campaign that's in 21 counties and 13 1400 volunteers.

It really is something.

And, I listened to those people.

I knew Tammy Murphy.

So I was early there with a lot of other people.

I thought that it was an opportunity to work with the senator.

I didn't really know Andy at the time, and I should have probably been more cautious.

It was the volunteers year that were involved in my campaign that said to me, you are in the wrong place and you are in the wrong place for these reasons.

And we had a lot of conversations around that.

And that's what ultimately drove a change for me.

While the candidates did not engage with one another directly, the proceedings came to a halt as protesters called on the candidates and the Democratic Party to support Palestine and to condemn Israel for their actions in the current conflict.

Kim quieted the crowd and met with some of the protesters after the event.

It was the one note of discord on the day where the candidates and the audience seemed to agree on almost everything.

I'm David Cruz, NJ Spotlight News.