Democrats in Salem County, a South Jersey county that’s by far the smallest in the state, voted to endorse First Lady Tammy Murphy for U.S. Senate at their convention today in Woodstown.
With 21 total convention delegates in attendance, Murphy won 13 secret-ballot votes to Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown)’s eight; a third candidate on the ballot, Patricia Campos-Medina, did not win any votes.
The win will likely have minimal effect on the Senate primary, since Salem County doesn’t have a county line. The organization’s preferred candidates will be able to use the official Salem Democratic slogan, but they’ll be grouped on primary ballots by office rather than arranged by party-endorsed column, as they are in most of the rest of the state.
In the 2017 gubernatorial election, Salem Democrats endorsed Phil Murphy, but voters instead opted for then-Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) by three votes; it was the only county Murphy lost in that year’s primary.
The county also represents a very small percentage of the statewide Democratic electorate. Just 14,487 registered Democrats, or 0.6% of the statewide total, live in the county – around as many as are in, say, the city of Hackensack.
Still, it’s an important symbolic victory for Murphy against Kim, who would be the first South Jerseyan elected to the Senate in decades if he wins. Murphy has generally struggled to win open county conventions; in fact, the Salem convention represents the first Murphy victory in a county where the local chairperson (in Salem’s case, Steve Caltabiano) had not publicly endorsed her campaign beforehand.
The broader South Jersey Democratic organization, led by Democratic power broker George Norcross, is very much behind Murphy. That was enough to ensure Murphy got the county Democratic line in Camden and Gloucester Counties, the two counties where Norcross has near-total power.
But in Burlington and Atlantic Counties, two South Jersey counties with more small-d democratic endorsement processes, Kim overwhelmingly won the county line against Murphy. Two others, Cape May and Cumberland, haven’t made any endorsement at all; Cape May Democrats simply opted out of endorsing, while Cumberland Democrats are currently in the midst of a power struggle between two factions of the party and haven’t been able to accomplish much of anything this year.
Salem Democrats also awarded their official endorsement today to congressional candidate Tim Alexander, who is running for a rematch against Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) in the 2nd congressional district. Alexander got 13 votes, while Joe Salerno got six and Carolyn Rush got two.
Alexander previously won the party line in Ocean and Atlantic Counties, while Gloucester and Cape May Counties awarded their line, shared, to every candidate running. Like in the Senate race, it’s not really clear what will happen in the Cumberland County portion of the district.
For four countywide offices up this year, Salem Democrats are running three candidates: former Penns Grove Councilwoman Charlyn Martin for county clerk and Nelson Carney and Germer Ledford for two county commissioner seats. Local Democrats have not found anyone to run for county sheriff, with the filing deadline two days away.