The National Organization for Women-New Jersey PAC has voted to recommend an endorsement of Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, passing over First Lady Tammy Murphy and activist Patricia Campos-Medina; both are hoping to become the first woman to represent the state in the United States Senate.
“We met with both candidates. We deliberated. And based on records and what each candidate has done in the past, we recommended Andy,” said Jill LaZare, the organization’s president.
NOW-NJ said it would prefer to endorse women candidates, but says Kim “strongly believes that Congressman Andy Kim has demonstrated his commitment to the core issues espoused by NOW and is the best senatorial candidate.”
“Andy’s vision for our country brings us hope and is based on concrete plans for a better tomorrow for girls and women,” the group said in a statement. “Tammy Murphy would undoubtedly work very hard in the Senate and is on the right side of most issues, however, she does not have the congressman’s track record.”
It will now be up to the group’s national organization to decide if they want to ratify the recommendation.
Civil Rights leader and former Newark school board member Lawrence Hamm and perennial candidate Lisa McCormick are also in the race.
New Jersey Democrats have not nominated a woman for U.S. Senate since 1930, when 32-year-old Thelma Parkinson was slotted to run for a ten-week unexpired term in a bid by party leaders to attract women who had been voting for just a decade to back their candidate for six-year-term, Alexander Simpson, a state senator from Jersey City.
New Jersey is one of seventeen states that have never been represented by a woman in the Senate. In addition to Parkinson, Republicans Millicent Fenwick (1982), Mary Mochary (1984), and Christine Whitman (1990) ran unsuccessfully.