Mercer County Democrats have awarded their county line for the 3rd congressional district to Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D-Delran), cementing Conaway as the clear favorite for Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown)’s open House seat.
Conaway received 130 votes to businesswoman Sarah Schoengood’s 22 votes and Assemblywoman Carol Murphy (D-Mount Laurel)’s 19, a margin of 76%-13%-11%; a fourth candidate, civil rights attorney Joe Cohn, did not receive any votes after struggling to officially qualify for the convention.
Under Mercer Democrats’ rules, if multiple candidates get more than 40% of the convention vote, they share the county organizational line – the powerful ballot design system that lets county parties group their endorsed candidates in the same column or row – though only the winner gets the official party endorsement. Conaway’s 76% of the vote, though, gives him the county line outright.
Five Mercer County towns are located in the 3rd district, representing a little over one-fifth of the district’s Democratic electorate. One of those five towns is Hamilton Township, the county’s largest municipality; Mercer County Executive Dan Benson, a Hamilton politician, nominated Benson from the convention floor today.
Conaway’s win means that he has the line in all three of the 3rd district’s counties, after prior landslide wins in Burlington and Monmouth Counties. His three consecutive victories will make him extremely hard to beat in the Democratic primary, and will force Murphy to make a tough decision about whether to stay in the race or end her campaign before the election.
At the top of the ticket, Kim has won the county line for U.S. Senate in the same three counties, meaning that he will be bracketed with Conaway everywhere in the 3rd district. That might open the door to Murphy joining an off-the-line slate led by Senate candidate Tammy Murphy, who is not related to the assemblywoman.
There could also still be a major twist in the race in the form of a federal lawsuit Kim filed last month to strike down the county line as unconstitutional. The lawsuit, on which Schoengood is a co-plaintiff, is set to be heard in court one week from today.
If the county line is indeed abolished, then the race for the 3rd district changes dramatically. Neither Conaway nor Carol Murphy reported raising much money during their campaigns’ first quarters, and it’s anyone’s guess how the dynamics of a line-free primary would play out, particularly given Murphy’s closer connections to the well-funded South Jersey Democratic organization. It could also make Cohn and Schoengood genuine players in the race, depending on their fundraising.
That’s purely hypothetical for now, though. Assuming the county line remains in place, Conaway has a straightforward path to victory, both in the primary and general elections. While the 3rd district was once highly competitive, it was redrawn prior to the 2022 elections to be much more Democratic, and the list of prospective GOP challengers this year includes no especially notable names.
Conaway has served in the state legislature for 26 years, first winning a Burlington County Assembly seat in 1997 by 112 votes. In 2004, he ran for the 3rd congressional district against Rep. Jim Saxton (R-Mount Holly) but lost 63%-35%; this year could finally be the year Conaway gets retribution for that loss, and it could additionally give South Jersey its first-ever Black member of Congress.
Also winning tonight’s convention was Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), who represents the other half of the county in Congress. Watson Coleman won by acclamation after her longshot primary challenger, former Princeton school board member Daniel Dart, declined to show up at the convention.
Three Mercer County Commissioners – Samuel Frisby (D-Trenton), Kristin McLaughlin (D-Hopewell), and Terrance Stokes (D-Ewing) – were given party support tonight for another term. Stokes first got to the board of commissioners in 2021 by unexpectedly defeating a longtime incumbent, but he and his running mates were unopposed this time.
And President Joe Biden was uncontested in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president; Biden’s various primary opponents, most of whom have by now dropped out of the race, never filed at any of New Jersey’s county conventions.
This story was updated on March 13 at 1:52 p.m. with more information on Joe Cohn.