Howard Dean is taking sides in the New Jersey Senate race, backing Tammy Murphy in an endorsement that comes five hours before the start of the Hunterdon County Democratic convention.
Dean had served as governor of Vermont before mounting a bid for the 2004 presidential nomination that had him, for a time, as the front-runner; later he served as Democratic National Chairman during a time when Murphy’s husband, Phil, was the DNC finance chairman.
“She’s unafraid to tackle the most complicated issues that we possibly have and she has been very, very effective,” Dean said in a video released this morning. “She is a great human being, I hope you’ll support her, I certainly will.”
The endorsement of a former DNC chairman could help Murphy buffer criticism that she had only become a registered Democrat a decade ago. Her principal rival for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), has hammered her for her time as a Republican.
Kim has defeated Murphy at Democratic conventions in Monmouth and Burlington, pushing back from a bid by the Murphy campaign to secure a shared organization line in Burlington, his home county. Murphy secured the line in Passaic last week; that process involved a vote of the Democratic municipal chairs in the county.
Dean praised Murphy as “an extraordinary person. In addition to being mother of her own four children.”
“She has taken on infant mortality and maternal mortality all over the state of New Jersey and made New Jersey into a leader in reducing the rates of maternal and infant mortality. She’s focused on the really big issues that matter to New Jersey – protecting abortion rights, ending the gun violence epidemic, addressing climate change, and prioritizing medical affordability,” said Dean. “She knows New Jersey, she knows its communities, she’s been all over the state in the last six years, up and down.”
See here for a full list of endorsements in New Jersey’s 2024 congressional contests.