Hillside Mayor Dahlia Vertreese has endorsed Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) for U.S. Senate, bucking Democratic leaders in her home of Union County just as they bucked her in her 2021 re-election campaign.
“Andy has worked for his community and his country his entire life,” Vertreese said in a statement posted to her website. “He has young sons like me; he has been underestimated like me; and he believes in grassroots like I do. Because neither of us were handpicked, we had to build movements with our own hands. We had to raise money, build our own operation with friends and family, and prove to our neighbors that we deserve their vote.”
Kim is likely to run off-the-line in Union County in this year’s Democratic Senate primary. His main opponent, First Lady Tammy Murphy, has the backing of State Senate President and Union Democratic Chairman Nick Scutari, which likely assures her of getting official party endorsement in the county.
And Vertreese, who has led her majority-Black township of 22,000 people since 2018, is no stranger to running without party support. In her 2021 re-election campaign, Scutari and other top Union Democrats ditched Vertreese in favor of Councilwoman Nancy Mondella; Vertreese won anyways by a 51%-32% margin in a nonpartisan election.
That experience seems to have firmly turned Vertreese against New Jersey’s Democratic Party machinery, much of which is being deployed to aid Murphy this year.
“Party bosses have become field generals who invest no grassroots energy into their strategies to attract, educate and invest in the communities they are supposed to serve,” Vertreese said. “Voters are keenly aware of our problems, but are tired of over-privileged, pop-up candidates who are presented as the ‘savior of the masses’ in packaged, well-monied ‘connections for protection.’”
Vertreese also directly criticized Murphy herself, bringing up Murphy’s past voter registration as a Republican and calling “privileged white women with powerful husbands” a longtime barrier to progress and equality.
“We cannot risk another Joe Manchin/Kristen Sinema experience where one ascends using Democratic Party resources to then emerge vacillating about where and with whom they stand when it comes to representing our interests,” Vertreese said.
Vertreese is the latest notable Democrat on the outs with the party establishment to back Kim, whose campaign has focused heavily on combating corruption and machine politics. Kim also has the support of former Rep. Tom Malinowski (whose congressional district was redrawn by Democrats to be more Republican) and Jersey City Council President Joyce Watterman (whose 2025 Jersey City mayoral campaign will pit her against much of the Hudson County Democratic organization), among others.
See here for a full list of endorsements in New Jersey’s 2024 congressional contests.