Grassroots Momentum Will Beat Heavy-Handed Machine Politics in New Jersey Senate Race

As the New Jersey U.S. Senate race heats up, it’s vital to dig deeper than the surface level conventional wisdom that money and endorsements will decide the primary. Nationally, the threats to our democracy are well known and front of mind for voters. But in New Jersey, where Senator Bob Menendez is facing unprecedented corruption charges and county leaders have undue powers to rig the ballot, the fight to protect democracy takes a whole new light.

“New Jerseyans are sick and tired of the political establishment’s overt attempt at manipulating this election and they’re fighting back,” said End Citizens United Communications Director Jonas Edwards-Jenks. “This race has become a clear contrast between a people-powered campaign for reform versus the corrupt status quo of New Jersey machine politics. While Tammy Murphy may have the big money and political insiders, Andy Kim has harnessed the grassroots power and is fighting for a democracy we all can be proud of.”

Polling has consistently shown Andy Kim with double digit leads. An internal poll from the Kim campaign in December had him up 45 percent to Murphy’s 22 percent, and an October poll from End Citizens United // Let America Vote had Kim leading with 42 percent followed by Murphy with 19 percent and Sen. Menendez with five percent.

See what New Jerseyans are reading:

New Jersey Monitor: For Andy Kim, it’s him vs. ‘party elites’ in battle for U.S. Senate seat

Terrence T. Mcdonald
1/29/24
Key sections: 

• For Kim, first elected to the House in 2018 to represent a conservative South Jersey district that twice voted for Trump for president, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot represents an attack on democracy not unlike one being waged by New Jersey Democratic party officials in this year’s Senate race.

• “We cannot be a party that claims to and champions the idea of protecting democracy if we are not fixing it here in New Jersey,” Kim told a crowd of supporters at a campaign rally at South Orange martini bar Papillon 25 on Friday. “We cannot be a party that says we’re standing up to Trump, we’re standing up against what happened with that assault on our Capitol, but then find ourselves here in New Jersey having Democratic party leaders and party elites trying to put their thumb on the scale of this election.”

• Kim is referring, of course, to the stampede of Democratic party leaders who have flocked to support his chief rival for the Senate seat, First Lady Tammy Murphy. New Jersey’s unique ballot design gives candidates backed by party bosses a key — some would say insurmountable — advantage, one Murphy is expected to enjoy in June’s primary (Larry Hamm and Patricia Campos-Medina are the other Democrats in the race).

• Barbara Gross Franklin attended the Morris County event with Andy Kim at the County College of Morris. Franklin, a member of Morris County’s Democratic committee, said she felt she could live with Murphy as a senator but thinks Kim is a superior choice. She, like Kim, thinks the Murphys are using their influence to tilt the scales in the first lady’s favor.

• “I am very disappointed, actually, in Phil Murphy because I have adored him as governor and thought he always did right by New Jersey, until he did this with his wife and he lines up the county bosses. And I think that was an unfair game to play, especially when you have such a superstar like Andy Kim,” she said.

The Trentonian: A Progressive Perspective: Tammy Murphy vs. Andy Kim: Coronation vs. Credentials 

Irwin Stoolmacher
12/11/23
Key sections: 

• Unfortunately, it appears that many Dem officials and party leaders have decided that Tammy Murphy, the wife of Governor Phil Murphy, is the best we can offer for the U.S. Senate, despite her dearth of experience and qualifications.

• Rutgers University Political Science Professor Ross Baker, an acknowledged expert on the United States Senate, got it right when he recently said, “This is nepotism on stilts.” As The New York Times recently pointed out, we currently have five members of the New Jersey Congressional delegation “with relatives who have held prominent political positions.”

• Kim knew from the outset that the party bosses were not going to support him and in the end, the race will be a test of whether the traditional way that the Democratic Party operates will continue or whether there will be a greater choice of candidate and less dependency on the dictates of party bosses. That is how the Kim campaign will, no doubt, frame the race.

• The polls show Murphy and Kim start fairly equal in the public’s mind.  If the Governor was not prepared to use the considerable powers of his office to secure the support and assistance of the Democratic county chairs for his wife’s candidacy, she would have no chance, but that’s not what’s going to happen. Tammy Murphy will have the machine behind her.

NorthJersey.com: ‘Kim-mentum?’ A tide of unease about Tammy Murphy washes across NJ Democratic grassroots

Charles Stile
1/29/24
Key sections:

• Fueling this year’s general election is a fear that the democracy “entrusted to the hands of the American people,” as George Washington declared in his first inaugural address, is on the verge of collapse.

• So, amid all this bipartisan anxiety about the fate of American democracy, how have the New Jersey Democratic Party — and the lobbyists in its orbit — responded?

• By putting on a public clinic in anti-Democratic machine politics — a rigged system in action, flexing its hubris and arrogance.

• New Jersey’s Democratic leadership rapidly threw its political power behind first lady Tammy Murphy’s bid to capture the nomination for the U.S. Senate. That, in turn, has set the party’s grassroots on a revolt-like footing.

• An anger about disenfranchisement has swept through New Jersey’s liberal, grassroots enclaves. Kim has been traveling to these bastions to convert that anger into votes, despite the institutional disadvantage of being denied formal party support in the big Democratic counties.

• Kim has cast himself as a buck-the-establishment Democrat vowing to restore voter faith in a “broken” political system.

The New York Post: Phil Murphy’s office using taxpayer resources to shamelessly promote wife Tammy’s US Senate bid

Carl Campanile
1/29/24
Key sections:

• New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has been using taxpayer resources to promote his wife as she campaigns to become the Garden State’s latest US Senator, according to records and critics.

• Gov. Murphy’s press office has pumped out a slew of fawning press releases — which appear on the governor’s website — about First Lady Tammy Murphy after she announced her Senate run on Nov. 15.

New York Magazine: Tammy Murphy and the Nepo State

Simon van Zuylen-Wood
1/30/24
Key sections:

• Local press coverage of Tammy Murphy’s candidacy has been jaundiced, and Democrats across the state have been moaning about her undeserved advantages. But only anonymously. One elected official tells me, “Do I think she’s the best candidate? No. Do I think it’s a good look for New Jersey? No. If you’re asking me am I going to vote for her? The answer is no.” This is a person who has publicly endorsed her.

• The mood in Trenton is largely one of resignation. “I’m not pretending to be in touch with real-life people, but in terms of political people, there is no enthusiasm for her,” says a Democratic consultant not working for Murphy or Kim.

The New York Times: ‘Would a Call From Tammy Help?’ Pressure Grows in Race to Oust Menendez

Tracey Tully
1/14/24
Key sections: 

• The College Democrats of New Jersey were preparing to make an endorsement in one of the country’s most closely watched U.S. Senate primaries when calls began to come in from someone in touch with the campaign of Tammy Murphy, the presumptive front-runner and the wife of the state’s governor.

• The effort to stop the endorsement failed. On Wednesday, both the College Democrats of America and the New Jersey chapter issued full-throated endorsements of Mr. Kim, a South Jersey Democrat running against Ms. Murphy for the chance to oust Senator Bob Menendez.

• According to the recording, Ms. Magee warned the students that an early endorsement of Mr. Kim could harm their future job prospects, deprive their organization of as much as $2,000 in funding and hurt their odds of being selected as delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Politico: Tammy Murphy’s connection to Joe Biden could give her a big advantage in Senate primary

Daniel Han
1/28/24
Key sections:

• But Murphy is leaving nothing to chance in her battle against Rep. Andy Kim and is now looking to possibly take even greater advantage of New Jersey’s unusual primary ballot system to give her an edge.

• To do so, Murphy is considering appearing with Biden on the primary ballot across the state even in counties where she doesn’t gain party endorsements, according to three people familiar with the private discussions among Democrats. It is a seemingly small visual distinction but one that could lead many voters to ignore Kim, who would be forced into a separate column without the president.

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