Justin Murphy has emerged as the victor of Republicans’ unpredictable four-way contest for U.S. Senate, the New Jersey Globe projects, putting him at the top of the GOP ticket in what’s shaping up to be a challenging year for New Jersey Republicans.
As of 11:59 p.m. and with nearly all votes counted, Murphy has 33% of the vote, around 9,000 votes of state trooper Richard Tabor’s 29%. Former News 12 reporter Alex Zdan is in third with 27%, and physician Robert Lebovics is bringing up the rear with 11%.
Republicans haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in New Jersey since 1972, the GOP’s second-longest drought in the nation behind only Hawaii. Party leaders acknowledge that streak is unlikely to change this year against Booker, a formidable and extraordinarily well-funded foe (he has more than $22 million in his campaign account) who has won all three of his Senate campaigns by double digits.
In fact, for most of 2025, Republicans didn’t have any Senate candidates at all; major names like State Sen. Mike Testa and former interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba passed on campaigns, and the GOP didn’t have an obvious bench of candidates to step up instead.
Of the four candidates who did eventually enter the race, none was able to consolidate the state party behind their campaign, leading to a fractured county convention season that saw Zdan, Murphy, and Tabor each win a number of important endorsements. Fundraising among the GOP contenders was also scant, making for a low-information campaign without a lot of guideposts for voters.
Murphy had party support in Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer Counties, but his support proved to be unexpectedly robust elsewhere in the state, too, winning a number of North Jersey counties. It’s the first time that Murphy, a committed conservative, has won a GOP congressional nomination after years of trying; he came in third place in the 2024 U.S. Senate primary and lost two primaries for the 3rd congressional district in 2008 and 2010.
Although Murphy starts out as the heavy underdog in the general election, he does have another important role to play, since he’ll be the first Republican listed on every voter’s ballot in November. If he’s able to put up a real fight against Booker, that could help downballot Republicans in races for the House and local office – and a poor campaign at the top of the ticket could do the opposite.
Booker, for his part, is probably looking to maximize his margin ahead of a potential second presidential campaign in 2028. The senator’s 16-point win in 2020 remains the second-largest statewide Democratic victory in New Jersey of the 21st century, behind only Bob Menendez’s 2012 blowout; in a Democratic-leaning year like 2026, can Booker best even that?