Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) has endorsed Tammy Murphy for U.S. Senate, becoming the sixth member of the New Jersey nine-member Democratic House delegation to endorse the First Lady for indicted incumbent Bob Menendez’s seat.
“There is no candidate for the Senate I trust more to focus on the issues most central to families and our future than Tammy Murphy,” Sherrill said. “I need an ally, and New Jersey needs an advocate, who is ready to fight for women and children.”
Murphy faces three-term Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) in the Democratic Senate primary. Menendez has not announced if he will seek a fourth term while battling criminal charges.
“I have long advocated for more women in leadership at all levels of government, because — as I have seen firsthand — more women at the table means more policies in support of women and children. Period,” Sherrill said. “ As New Jersey’s First Lady, Tammy Murphy has proven this point: improving our state’s performance on maternal and infant health and advocating successfully to expand state support for affordable childcare.”
Sherrill joins Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), who endorsed Murphy on Friday, and Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), Donald Payne (D-Newark), and Donald Norcross (D-Camden), who announced their support of Murphy’s Senate bid this morning.
That leaves two delegation members uncommitted: Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), and Menendez’s son, Robert J. Menendez, a freshman congressman from Hudson County.
Sherrill and Gottheimer are both potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2025, when two-term Democrat Phil Murphy is term-limited.
“I work every day in the U. S. House of Representatives to beat back attacks by the Republican majority on a woman’s access to reproductive healthcare,” Sherrill said. “Washington Republicans in both the Senate and House are laser-focused on enacting a total ban on abortions with no exceptions while working simultaneously to block access to affordable childcare.”
Sherrill added, “And with a Republican majority in the House launching attack after attack after attack on women and families, it’s my colleagues in the U.S. Senate that I rely on to protect our rights. But that slim Senate majority hangs in the balance in 2024.”