After more than a month of hopping from county to county, meeting thousands of county committeemembers and learning each county Democratic organization’s obscure convention rules, Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) and First Lady Tammy Murphy will soon finally be free.
The coming days will feature this year’s last three major county conventions, which are tremendously important in New Jersey politics thanks to the county line, the unique New Jersey institution that allows county parties to shape primary ballots to benefit their preferred candidates. In their quest for a U.S. Senate seat, Kim and Murphy have been seeking party support at conventions up and down the state since early February.
Middlesex County Democrats will meet today, but their convention won’t hold much drama, since the Murphy-supporting county Democratic chairman has the power to award the line unilaterally. More interesting will be Saturday’s Morris County convention in the tony suburbs of New York City and Sunday’s Atlantic County convention on the Jersey Shore, each of which will hold an open vote that either candidate could win. Kim seems to be favored in both.
In Morris, Kim and Murphy won’t be alone; Patricia Campos-Medina, a third Democratic contender who has garnered between 4% and 6% of the vote at most conventions, will compete there too. She won’t be in Middlesex or Atlantic, though, and two other candidates, Larry Hamm and Patrick Merrill, did not file to contest any of the three conventions.
And then there’s incumbent Senator Bob Menendez, who won every county line in all three of his prior statewide campaigns but has yet to show his face at a single convention this year. The senator, who is of course facing a blistering set of federal corruption charges, has not been collecting the signatures he’d need to in order to run this year, though he hasn’t officially ruled out a re-election campaign and NBC News reported this morning that he’s considering running as an independent.
But just as has been the case for months, the race is primarily between Kim and Murphy, each of whom have made a strong case for their campaigns during convention season. Kim has won seven county conventions in total, all of them in open, secret-ballot votes; Murphy, on the other hand, has party support in most of the state’s largest and bluest counties, many of which decide their endorsements without proper convention votes.
Two other counties are still set to hold genuine conventions after this weekend: Cumberland Democrats will decide on their county line on March 21, a delay of two weeks from their original March 7 convention, while Salem Democrats will meet on March 23. But both counties are quite small, and Salem County doesn’t even have a county line, so their impact will be minimal.
Four more big counties – Camden, Gloucester, Essex, and Hudson – have also not yet officially met to determine their county lines, but all four are very top-down organizations that don’t have real conventions to decide that sort of thing. The only question is when party leaders in each will officially ratify their choice of Murphy for Senate.
On Monday, March 18, U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi will hear Kim’s lawsuit arguing that the county line itself is unconstitutional. If Quraishi rules in Kim’s favor, which is a real possibility, that would render much of the convention-focused campaign of the last month mostly moot.
But that won’t stop Kim and Murphy from giving it their all in this final big convention weekend. Here’s what to expect, beginning in Middlesex County this evening.
Middlesex County (March 14)
Update at 7:14 p.m. on March 14: Murphy did, indeed, win the Middlesex convention on a show of hands that was not tallied.
Middlesex County is home to 240,691 registered Democrats, making it the state’s third-biggest share of Democratic votes (9.7% of the Democratic electorate, behind only Essex and Bergen) and a hugely important piece of any candidate’s statewide coalition.
It’s also set to have one of this cycle’s least interesting county conventions. When Middlesex Democrats meet in Iselin tonight, there’s no question that Tammy Murphy will come away with the county line.
That’s partially because the party bylaws give Middlesex Democratic Chair Kevin McCabe, who endorsed Murphy months ago, the power to award his party’s endorsement however he sees fit. Convention votes for U.S. Senate and governor – and only those two offices – are officially advisory votes that are subject to approval by the county chair.
But even if McCabe didn’t have that power, the convention would be a slam dunk for Murphy. The advisory vote is conducted by a show of hands, and McCabe runs a tight enough ship that there’s no chance a Kim insurgency would be able to take serious root in his county committee.
A few Middlesex Democrats intend to make a motion to switch the convention to a binding, secret-ballot vote, echoing a similar effort made last week in Somerset County, another county where votes are conducted publicly. But those Somerset Democrats were unsuccessful, and their Middlesex compatriots are likely to be shut down as well. (Unlike in Somerset, press will not be allowed at the Middlesex convention to witness what goes down.)
The Senate candidates will still have the opportunity to speak before the gathered convention delegates, and Kim is set to attend to make his case. That’s been a trend across every county convention thus far: Kim and Murphy have shown up everywhere, even in places where they are heavily disfavored, like when Murphy made her case to delegates in Burlington County despite it being Kim’s home county.
When the actual primary election arrives, Kim could put in a strong off-the-line showing in Middlesex County, which has a large Asian American population and lots of high-information voters who might not care too much who has the party endorsement. The line itself, though, is not in doubt. When McCabe endorsed Murphy back in November, that clinched the Middlesex line for her, and tomorrow will simply be a ratification of McCabe’s decision.
Everything else on Middlesex Democrats’ agenda for tonight will be boring. Reps. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) both ostensibly have primary challengers in John Hsu and Daniel Dart, but neither filed to compete at the Middlesex convention; incumbent County Commissioners Ronald Rios (D-Carteret) and Shanti Narra (D-North Brunswick) will also be unopposed.
Morris County (March 16, but results won’t be released until March 18)
No county demonstrates the shifting sands of this Senate campaign quite like Morris County.
When the New Jersey Globe took a look in December at the fight for every county line, Morris Democrats seemed to be leaning in Murphy’s favor. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty, and Morris Democratic Vice-Chair Mike DeLamater are all on Team Tammy, and Kim looked like an early underdog in a county that makes up nearly 5% of the statewide Democratic vote.
But now, with Morris Democrats meeting this Saturday in Randolph, it would be a shock if Kim didn’t win the county line. In fact, a Kim landslide is substantially more likely than a Murphy victory, something that both campaigns seem to recognize.
Why the huge shift in the forecast? Over the course of the last month, Kim has won seven county conventions, all of which were conducted via secret ballot and five of which came in counties that are controlled by Republicans at the county level (and thus lack the kind of robust party infrastructure that Murphy has benefited from elsewhere). Morris fits all of those descriptions to a T.
But even beyond that, the Morris Democratic Committee is an activist organization, arguably more so than any other county Democratic Party in the state. Its beating heart is local progressive voters, mostly women, who took up the Democratic mantle after the 2016 election and worked to get people like Sherrill and now-former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) elected. (Malinowski, for what it’s worth, is backing Kim this year.)
Unlike some other county chairs, Morris Democratic Chair Amalia Duarte has remained firmly neutral, both in public and behind-the-scenes. Murphy has yet to win a county convention in a county where the Democratic chair didn’t publicly endorse her beforehand.
All of that combines to create a very Kim-friendly environment. Even if top Democrats like Sherrill and DeLamater are on Murphy’s side, the hundreds of county committee members, local elected officials, and municipal party chairs who will come to the convention will vote however they choose – and if past conventions in demographically similar counties like Hunterdon and Mercer are any indication, most of them will choose Kim.
(Sherrill’s support for Murphy, then, may put her out of step with many of the rank-and-file Democrats who helped her flip her congressional seat in 2018, which could be important as the congresswoman considers a 2025 gubernatorial campaign. Sherrill hasn’t been aggressive in going after Kim, though, and has indicated that she’ll share the line with him if they both win the Morris convention.)
But it will be a little while before we know for sure that Kim has won. Morris Democrats will hold an in-person event on Saturday where the candidates can speak to delegates, but the voting itself will take place online and will run through Sunday at midnight, with results being announced on Monday.
Uncontested races, though, will be decided the day of the convention, including Sherrill for the 11th congressional district and Sue Altman for the Republican-held 7th congressional district. Once Altman gets the Morris line, she’ll have won all six of her district’s conventions unopposed, a striking result for someone who once looked like she would have to get through a bruising primary (and who spent years advocating against the county line system).
Morris Democrats will also settle on candidates for three county commissioner seats and the county surrogate’s office. No Democrat has won a countywide office in Morris County in 50 years, but with Donald Trump set to be at the top of the Republican ticket once again, this year could be the year that finally changes.
Atlantic County (March 17)
If Kim wins this year he’d be the first South Jerseyan to serve in the Senate since 1955. But he’s not the preferred choice of the South Jersey Democratic organization led by George Norcross, who decided very early in the campaign that he was backing Murphy.
That’s part of what makes Sunday’s convention in Atlantic County so interesting. Atlantic Democrats are part of the larger South Jersey Democratic orbit, but they’re not fully beholden to it, and the secret-ballot vote between Murphy and Kim is genuinely competitive; in fact, Kim is probably the favorite.
If Kim does win, it wouldn’t be the first time in recent memory that Atlantic Democrats have bucked Norcross. In the 2020 Democratic primary for the 2nd congressional district, Atlantic County went for Amy Kennedy instead of the Norcross-endorsed Brigid Callahan Harrison; Kennedy went on to win the primary in a landslide before losing in the general election to party-switching Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis).
Kennedy herself is supporting Murphy this year, but it’s clear that much of the energy that propelled Kennedy to victory four years ago is now working in Kim’s favor. Just as in every prior county where convention delegates voted secretly and where the county chair didn’t throw their weight around – Atlantic Democratic Chair Michael Suleiman is neutral in the race – Kim is simply proving to have more rank-and-file enthusiasm for his campaign.
Murphy is drawing much of her support from Atlantic City and Pleasantville, which are home to the county’s two biggest communities of color. Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small will nominate Murphy at the convention, and Pleasantville Mayor Judy Ward will second her nomination; Atlantic County Commissioner Ernest Coursey (D-Atlantic City), the one Democrat left in county office, is also backing Murphy.
That points to a long-term problem in Kim’s statewide coalition. While Kim has clearly demonstrated appeal across many demographics, he’s seemingly struggled to break through in urban Black and Hispanic communities, something which has been visible both in endorsements (nearly all big-city mayoral endorsements have gone to Murphy) and in polling (in a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll from February, Murphy led Kim 24%-16% among Black voters and 26%-10% among Hispanic voters).
But in the shorter term, Murphy’s base in Atlantic City and Pleasantville likely won’t be enough to win her the Atlantic convention. Even though Atlantic City is the urban hub of the county, it’s not actually all that big; combined, it and Pleasantville account for just 23% of eligible Democratic convention delegates.
Unless Murphy is also pulling big numbers from elsewhere in the county, that’s not nearly enough to win. Kim, who will be nominated and seconded by low-level county committeemembers from Linwood and Galloway, seems to have math on his side.
Also happening on Sunday will be a vote for the Democratic line to take on Van Drew in the 2nd congressional district, which includes all of Atlantic County. Three candidates will be competing for party support: 2022 nominee Tim Alexander, self-funding tech entrepreneur Joe Salerno, and 2022 primary runner-up Carolyn Rush.
Two of the 2nd district’s counties have already held conventions, with Alexander winning the Ocean Democratic line and Cape May Democrats opting out of an endorsement altogether. But Atlantic County is very much the biggest prize in the district, casting one-third of the district’s votes in the 2022 primary.
Alexander, who lives in Galloway, has endorsements from many of the county’s most prominent elected officials, including Coursey, several Atlantic City councilmembers, and Hamilton Township Committeewoman Thelma Witherspoon, the county party vice-chair. Salerno, meanwhile, has the support of former County Commissioner Caren Fitzpatrick (D-Linwood), the Democratic nominee for a high-profile State Senate race last year.
Ultimately, though, who emerges as the Democratic nominee may not matter too much. Van Drew beat Alexander 59%-40% in 2022, and while that margin may be hard to match this year, all major election forecasters rate the district as “Safe Republican.”
Lastly, Atlantic Democrats are set to officially ratify their choices for three Republican-held county commissioner seats: Pleasantville Councilwoman Joanne Famularo for the newly redrawn, Democratic-leaning 2nd district, Susan Lazarchick for the strongly Republican 5th district, and Kim O’Brien for an at-large seat.
Will any of this matter?
The problem with forecasting any of these conventions is that they could all soon become mostly irrelevant, depending on the outcome of Kim’s lawsuit challenging the line. The day after the Atlantic convention – in fact, at the very moment Morris results are set to be released – Judge Quraishi will hear Kim’s case, and it’s anyone’s guess how he’ll ultimately rule.
If Quraishi does indeed strike down the line, something he sounded at least open to doing in a scheduling conference with lawyers last month, that would completely upend the campaign for Senate and for every other office up for election in New Jersey this year.
Suddenly, county party endorsements would mean little on ballots themselves, and would only be as effective as the party organizations themselves are able to make them. New Jersey party organizations would have to do what their counterparts in every other state already do: work to promote their preferred candidates through regular old campaigning, without extra help from the ballot itself.
But even if the lawsuit fails and the county line remains in place, it’s an open question just how much it will actually matter. New Jersey voters are paying an unusual amount of attention to this year’s Senate race, so it’s hard to imagine that many of them will go into the polling booth genuinely undecided and base their votes on a candidate’s ballot position.
There’s an oft-cited statistic that the county line can confer a 38-point advantage on its preferred candidates, but that’s likely wildly overestimating its impact in this year’s Senate race, because the true power of the county line comes from scaring off formidable challengers and leaving only weak ones – candidates who would be losing in landslides even without the line system. In races where both candidates are spending lots of money and voters are very clued into the campaign, the county line shouldn’t mean nearly as much.
At least, that’s what the Kim campaign is counting on. Even with Kim’s impressive string of convention victories, Murphy’s many preordained wins in places like Essex, Hudson, and Camden Counties mean that she’ll still appear on the county line for more than two-thirds of New Jersey Democratic voters. Kim will need a large number of voters in those counties to look past the line if he wants a chance at winning.
Next week, the campaign to get voters to do that will truly begin. New Jersey’s primary season typically happens in two distinct halves: appealing to party leaders and county convention delegates in the first half, and to the rest of the electorate in the second half. This year’s Senate primary has been unprecedented in a number of ways, but that two-part primary structure has largely remained in place.
In just a few days, part one will end, and part two will begin.