A day after saying that he was incorrectly included on a list of endorsements for First Lady Tammy Murphy’s Senate campaign, Bradley Beach Democratic municipal chair Steve Lozowick has reversed course and is now saying that he does, in fact, support Murphy’s candidacy.
Lozowick maintains that he had not agreed to publicly back Murphy prior to the release of yesterday’s endorsement list, but he said that he had discussed his support for Murphy internally with people affiliated with her campaign. Now, he said, he’s willing to publicly declare his support.
“I do endorse Tammy Murphy in this race,” Lozowick told the New Jersey Globe. “I had held up my endorsement, because I was really trying to not influence any county committee[members] in one way or the other. I wanted to let them do whatever they wanted to do.”
That seems to contradict what Lozowick had said yesterday; he had said that he wasn’t sure how he ended up on Murphy’s endorsement list, and that he was going into Saturday’s Monmouth County Democratic convention as a genuinely undecided vote.
“I’m absolutely neutral,” he said less than 24 hours ago. “In fact, when I go in to vote on Saturday, I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for.”
Lozowick’s change of heart appears to have been prompted by lobbying from an old friend: Somerset County Democratic chair and statewide Democratic vice-chair Peg Schaffer, whom Lozowick has known for decades. Schaffer, the former borough attorney in Bradley Beach, is a staunch Tammy Murphy supporter and a longtime member of Gov. Phil Murphy’s inner orbit.
“Steve told me over a month ago he was supporting the First Lady,” Schaffer said of Lozowick. “I was surprised to read the article [in which he said he was neutral], which is what prompted me to call him.”
Lozowick was one of four endorsers from yesterday’s list who said afterwards that they had not made any endorsement. Brielle Democratic municipal chair Kevin Starkey told the New Jersey Globe he had not discussed any endorsement with the Murphy campaign, while Ocean Township Mayor John Napolitani and Asbury Park Councilwoman Angela Ahbez-Anderson both said on Facebook that they were remaining neutral in the race, though Ahbez-Anderson later took her post down.
Any endorsement from Monmouth County is especially important right now thanks to this weekend’s convention, the first county convention of the year between Murphy and her chief primary opponent, Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown).
Both Murphy and Kim have some claim to native-child status in Monmouth County – Murphy has lived in it for decades, while Kim represents part of it in Congress – and the convention vote between them is expected to be highly competitive; two other candidates, Larry Hamm and Patricia Campos-Medina, will also be competing for support. Whoever wins will receive the Democratic line in the county, which accounts for 5% to 6% of the statewide Democratic vote.
The convention vote will be held by secret ballot, so the decision that any individual Monmouth Democrat ultimately makes about who to vote for will remain a mystery.