With Bob Menendez being measured for a jail cell, his seat will be open in November, so candidates are queuing up to run in the Democratic Party Primary.
The expected front runner is Tammy Murphy, who is the wife of governor Phil Murphy, and she has secured numerous endorsements, and a favorable ballot position, and has lost every single county party convention held so far to date to Andy Kim.
Oops.
It appears that nepo-babies (nepo-spouses?) are not popular this year:
New Jersey's first lady Tammy Murphy has tremendous advantages in her U.S. Senate bid, given her relationship with the state's most powerful person. But she is behind Rep. Andy Kim in the only statewide poll conducted so far, and has lost the first three convention contests where Democratic Party members vote to endorse candidates.
It’s a stunning turn of events for Murphy's candidacy, which appeared nearly invincible just a month ago as top Democratic Party leaders across the state had already secured endorsements from the political organizations they helm as well as preferred ballot placement in many of the counties with the most Democrats who to vote in the June primary. But the votes so far at county conventions — which will continue through March — constitute a rare, if not unprecedented, rebellion against party bosses by rank-and-file Democrats.
“Her appeal isn't really resonating with them. She talks really in a kind of a business manner, very transactional in the sense that ‘I get things done,’” Monmouth University Poll Director Patrick Murray said. “But not an overarching vision. And I think that a lot of, particularly, the progressive activists in the party feel they get more of a sense of that from Andy Kim.”
One of the things that politicians need to do to win elections is to ask voters for their votes.
I believe that pollster Murray is saying that she is not doing that.
Entitled and self-entitled are not synonyms.
………
The Hunterdon County Democratic Party convention on Sunday was Tammy Murphy's latest setback. County Chair Arlene Quiñones Perez had endorsed the first lady. But unlike many of New Jersey’s county political machines, Hunterdon asked its members to vote before endorsing a candidate and awarding them the coveted “county line,” which groups endorsed candidates into a single row or column and confers them with a perceived legitimacy that researchers say greatly increases their chances of victory.
………
He also previously won the county line for the Senate race in Monmouth and Burlington counties, with votes among party members. But in four of the five counties with the most Democrats, party chairs have already awarded the line to Murphy without any vote among their members. Bergen County, which is home to the second-most Democrats in the state, will hold a vote among its members on Monday.
Postscript to this somewhat late story, Kim demolished Murphy in Monmouth County as well.
This sh%$ is really politics 101: Open nepotism does not sell with the voters.
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