First Lady Tammy Murphy has won the Somerset County Democratic convention, defeating Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) by a two-to-one margin in a public vote.
According to the tally announced at the convention, Murphy received 207 votes, while Kim received 106; a third candidate, Patricia Campos-Medina, received 15. Delegates cast their votes by publicly standing up and showing green placards they received at the beginning of the convention – unlike every previous county convention in this year’s Senate race, which were all conducted by private ballot.
“I’m thrilled,” Murphy said of her victory, her second at an open convention after Bergen County’s earlier this week. “I’ve spent a lot of time on the ground here in Somerset. Much like in Bergen and other places, I’ve been on the phone, I’ve been doing Zooms. I’m here a lot.”
But Kim argued that the public-ballot system made it an unequal contest from the beginning, because Somerset Democratic Chair Peg Schaffer and other top county Democrats were on Murphy’s side and had the ability to see everyone who voted against them.
“I can’t tell you the number of people I had come up to me and tell me, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to vote with my town today [for Murphy], but I’m with you in June,’” Kim said. “It’s really frustrating.”
Somerset Democrats have long conducted their votes publicly, but they rarely vote on a race as contentious as the Senate primary between Murphy and Kim. An early attempt at today’s convention by two delegates to switch the convention to a secret-ballot vote was ruled out of order, and the idea was not brought up again.
Schaffer justified the system as allowing voters to hold their county committeemembers – an elected position – accountable for the votes they take at conventions.
“If they’re embarrassed about who they’re voting for, then they shouldn’t be voting,” Schaffer said. “Public bodies don’t vote secretly! I’m surprised that all these other counties that do a convention, do it secretly. It shouldn’t be a secret. Let’s let the sunshine in.”
Kim noted, though, that there was no realistic way of actually tracking who voted for whom; the tally process was done by a few Democratic staff who hurriedly counted the green cards that had been raised, with no one recording how individual people voted.
“Are they going to publish everyone’s name and who they voted for? Did they keep track of that?” Kim said. “There was nothing written down. Are they going to release videotape of every single person and how they voted?”
Murphy had gone into the convention as the favorite, in no small part due to support from Schaffer, the county’s most powerful Democrat.
Long before the convention – only two days after Murphy launched her Senate campaign, in fact – Schaffer endorsed Murphy, and she has spent much of the last several months working to shore up her support in Somerset County. That included some moves that the Kim campaign decried as unfairly putting a thumb on the scale for Murphy.
Last week, Schaffer sent a letter to convention delegates criticizing Kim and praising Murphy, saying that she “will be a force in the Senate from Day One.” The letter also noted that many Somerset Democrats hold judgeships and government jobs thanks in part to their relationship with Gov. Phil Murphy, an unspoken component of New Jersey politics that Schaffer surprisingly said aloud.
“Due to the success of the organization we have worked with the administration and local officials to put many of our members on the Superior Court,” Schaffer wrote. “We have gotten our local members responsible, rewarding positions with State and County government.”
And earlier this week, a pro-Murphy text paid for by the Somerset Democratic organization was sent out, even though the organization had not yet made an endorsement; Schaffer later said that was an error and that she’d refund the cost of the text.
In addition to Schaffer, Murphy had the lion’s share of institutional Democratic support in Somerset. Earlier today, she released an endorsement list that included Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-Franklin), the county sheriff, county clerk, and all five county commissioners, and 21 local elected officials from across the county.
Kim never released an endorsement from anywhere in the county; on that score, he was beaten out even by Campos-Medina, who had the support of former Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer (D-Montgomery). Clearly, though, a solid number of delegates – especially rank-and-file county committeemembers – were on his side.
With her victory, Murphy will receive the official Somerset Democratic county line, the powerful institution in New Jersey politics that places party-endorsed candidates in the same row or column on primary ballots. Kim opposes the line system, and has filed a (still-pending) lawsuit to strike it down.
Also winning the county line today were President Joe Biden, Sue Altman for the Republican-held 7th congressional district, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), and County Commissioners Shanel Robinson (D-Franklin) and Sara Sooy (D-Watchung), all of whom were uncontested. Altman has now won five county party endorsements in her race against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), with only Morris County left to go.