NJ’s Kim vs. Murphy Senate race is wild. Here are 5 reasons why.

A federal judge could rule any day on the unique New Jersey ballot system that gives candidates who are endorsed by political parties a huge advantage.

The debate over New Jersey’s arcane “county line” ballot design has been thrust into the spotlight in an election season full of wild and woolly Democratic Party county conventions, where U.S. Senate race frontrunners Rep. Andy Kim and first lady Tammy Murphy have battled for the political organizations’ endorsements.

Kim has won many of those endorsements, but in a majority of New Jersey’s most Democratic counties, they’re awarded directly by party leaders who back Murphy, so she’ll get preferential treatment on most primary ballots. Kim is suing to end the county line ballot system ahead of the primary. If he wins, he’d upend a system party bosses have long used to sway elections in a state where their political machines reign supreme.

Kim and the progressive activists supporting him said the ground has shifted on the issue.

“You can see from the number of people who showed up [in court], the number of candidates and elected officials all over New Jersey right now that are speaking out against this, there are a lot of people that have deep concerns about this,” Kim said. “I think there are a lot of people that haven't spoken out before that now are.”

It’s the first time New Jersey has seen a competitive Democratic primary for Senate in decades, and the first time the unusual ballot layout has become a statewide campaign issue. Here are five remarkable developments that got us here.

At Camden convention, the bosses decide who gets inside

Not all county committees award their endorsements through votes at conventions; in some cases, party bosses decide on those endorsements themselves. When committees do hold conventions, they usually invite the candidates to speak to their memberships, which comprise hundreds of delegates who often hold elected and appointed positions in local government themselves.

A candidate who wins the committee endorsement also gets the preferential ballot placement known as the county line in 19 of New Jersey’s 21 counties. The county line groups party-endorsed candidates on the ballot in a slate with other well-known Democrats — in this case, with the sitting U.S. president at the head of the list.

“Many, if not most counties do it the same way. We've got 1,000 people in there. You've got to sing for your supper, one candidate after the other,” Gov. Phil Murphy said during the December episode of WNYC’s “Ask Governor Murphy” call-in show. “Just because the chair says ‘I like candidate A,’ you have to go through a very serious process with 1,000 people in the room.”

But Senate candidate Patricia Campos-Medina said she wasn't allowed inside the building at last Saturday's Camden County Democratic Committee convention.

Tammy Murphy said in her stump speech that the Senate needs more women to fight for the issues important to them. But she hasn’t commented directly about how the race's only other female candidate was shut out. Her campaign referred questions about the decision to the Camden County Democratic Committee, which hasn’t responded to a request for comment made Thursday.

“I thought it was absolutely terrible of Tammy,” said Kate Delany, president of South Jersey Progressive Democrats. “If she is going to run as the feminist candidate, it’s disgraceful.”

Murphy offered some limited comments to reporters at another convention in Atlantic County the same weekend

"We're all playing by the same rules in the counties. We're all showing up and trying to do our best," she said.

The Camden committee had only announced the convention to its members a few days before, and Kim said he decided not to attend when he couldn’t get a response from the committee about whether he would be allowed inside. That meant Murphy was the only Senate candidate to attend.

Video of Campos-Medina arguing with a wall of large men wearing sunglasses and backward-turned baseball caps circulated on social media.

“These men acted more like bouncers at a club than Democratic party officials helping to facilitate a Democratic party meeting,” Campos-Medina wrote in a guest column for the Star-Ledger this week, calling for an end to the county line system.

Inside, the committee awarded the entire county line at once — including President Joe Biden, Murphy, and Rep. Donald Norcross — by acclamation. No other Senate candidates were mentioned.

“I am proud of the overwhelming support my campaign has received in Camden, as well as from our community members, faith leaders, and elected officials,” Murphy said in a press release after the vote.

These men acted more like bouncers at a club than Democratic party officials helping to facilitate a Democratic party meeting.

Senate candidate Patricia Campos-Medina, in a guest column for the Star-Ledger

If you can’t beat ’em, cancel the vote

“Thank you Cape May for a fantastic day, lot of laughs, and thoughtful conversations,” Murphy tweeted two days before the Cape May Democratic Committee met for its convention. As she did ahead of other conventions, she spent time on the ground campaigning for convention votes.

Yet when the convention happened, the leadership of the Cape May County Democrats recommended the committee cancel its vote, and not offer an endorsement at all.

Cape May’s Democratic committee has not yet responded to a request to explain the reason for the cancellation.

“She also spent the weekend in Cape May, so was clearly making a play there. If she had the votes, they’d have endorsed,” tweeted Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.

Although Cape May County is home to just 1% of the state's registered Democrats, each convention loss has added to the perception that Murphy isn’t the preferred choice of the party base.

The rebel alliance strikes back

Since Kim entered the race the day after incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez was indicted on corruption and bribery charges, Kim has had the support of many progressive activists across the state, including members of the groups Action Together NJ, Essex Rising, South Jersey Progressive Democrats and NJ 11th for Change. They like his anticorruption message and are turned off by what many argue is the nepotism inherent in a candidacy by the governor’s wife.

But when Murphy announced her candidacy, eight party bosses from the counties with the most powerful machines and largest number of Democratic voters endorsed her.

That usually means “game over” for any competitor in the primary. And even though Kim won most of the conventions where delegates voted on secret ballots, Murphy will still get the preferential “county line” treatment on the primary ballots available to at least two-thirds of registered Democrats in the state, according to Gothamist’s calculation. In most of the counties with the largest numbers of Democrats, party bosses awarded Murphy the “county line” without any convention at all.

I told [Andy Kim] it’s not always comfortable to admit a mistake but clearly I made one here.

Steven Fulop, Jersey City mayor and candidate for governor, endorsing Andy Kim.

Progressive activists, and specifically progressive women, have been organizing in New Jersey since the 2017 women’s march. And some say that experience with networking, door-knocking and get-out-the-vote efforts is helping them organize for Kim.

“They felt empowered when they succeeded in electing three experienced public servants who had never run for elected office before – Mikie Sherrill, Tom Malinowski, and Andy Kim – to Congress,” Amy Higer, one of the founders of SOMA Action, said. Her group is made up of residents of South Orange and Maplewood, but they now work across the state.

SOMA Action and many other groups have begun volunteering for Kim, phone banking, holding events, and attending visibility rallies outside the conventions.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who is running in the 2025 gubernatorial race, announced on Monday he was switching his endorsement from Murphy to Kim — saying the activists helped convince him to make the change.

“I told [Andy Kim] it’s not always comfortable to admit a mistake but clearly I made one here and this convention season has demonstrated he is the better candidate to represent NJ,” Fulop tweeted. “The backbone of our party volunteers and activists have spoken loudly and we should listen to them.”

Fulop told NJ Spotlight News that he became increasingly frustrated with the way Kim had been shut out from making his case at the largest county conventions and called on Murphy to drop out.

Outrage over an arcane election rule

Before this primary fight, the number of people in New Jersey who understood the “county line” was likely minuscule.

It would require intervention by the federal judge presiding over Kim’s lawsuit, filed in February and argued in court this week, to stop the line before the June primary. But there is little doubt that the conversation about it has already changed.

“Now, when I talk to folks, I've actually had people come up to me and say, ‘Hey, did you see this? Do you know about the line?’ This has never happened before,” said Arati Kreibich, who ran against her incumbent representative in 2020 without the county line and lost. “That in itself is a huge win compared to anything else that has happened. So I think we've already won in a real grassroots, public awareness way. And I don't think there's any letting the genie back in the bottle.”

I just ask for us to have a fair ballot here. I’m not asking for any advantages given to me.

Rep. Andy Kim

But Kim is suing the clerks of the 19 counties that use the line system. The progressive activists are calling for change. And the state attorney general, New Jersey's top law enforcement official, recently said he thinks the practice is unconstitutional.

“Look I just ask for us to have a fair ballot here. I’m not asking for any advantages given to me,” Kim told the judge during a nine-hour hearing in federal court on Monday, noting that Senate seats rarely open up. Menendez has been in the Senate since 2006, when he was appointed to his first term by Gov. Jon Corzine. “It is the only time I'll be able to step up and run for Senate in this way. I want to run for the Senate and serve the country, and I want to appeal to the voters in a fair way.”

Former candidates for Congress and the New Jersey Working Families Alliance filed a different lawsuit challenging the county line in 2021. That case is slowly winding its way through the legal process.

But the public pressure against the county line is prompting elected officials to take a stand against it for the first time.

The state Senate's Democratic president, the speaker of the General Assembly, and the Republican Senate and Assembly minority leaders all announced in a rare joint letter this week they would consider legislation to reform the ballot design. But they do not want to begin that work until next year.

LeRoy Jones — who chairs the Essex County Democratic Committee, home to the state’s largest number of registered Democrats, as well as the state Democratic Committees — said he is now open to discussing reform. But again, he’s not looking to make any changes ahead of the Senate primary.

The rise of the rank-and-file

Monmouth’s Democratic committee was the first to hold a convention, on Feb. 10, and the hourlong wait to enter the building was the first clue that something different was happening.

Despite leadership support for Murphy, who was on her home turf — she and the governor live in Middletown —an overwhelming majority of members of the committee voted for Kim.

That scene was repeated in all but one of the conventions where members were allowed to take secret votes. Murphy won the endorsement in the counties where the party chair called for a raise of hands, in view of party leaders

And after members had turned in their paper ballots on Feb. 24 in Hunterdon County, Chair Arlene Quiñones Perez announced the executive committee had decided that anyone who received 30% of the vote or more would share the line of the ballot. Kim's supporters quickly understood this would weaken his position, because Kim needed the line in the smaller, more democratically run county committees to counter the big committees that were supporting Murphy, usually without a convention vote.

The issue is that New Jersey needs fair ballots for the June primary

Elizabeth Redwine, member of the West Orange Democratic Committee.

Shouting and chaos ensued, and ultimately rank-and-file committee members were able to force a vote that overturned the executive committee’s decision. Kim won 62% of the endorsement vote and Tammy Murphy won 33%, which would have put the first lady on the ballot’s party line along with Kim under the committee chair's original plan.

Elizabeth Redwine is a member of the West Orange Democratic Committee in Essex County. She and other women who have been active since the Women’s March at the beginning of the Trump presidency have been fighting for a more open democratic process in New Jersey.

She was able to get Jones, the Essex County chair, to attend a meeting at her house to discuss making the system more democratic. Jones told Gothamist in February his county wouldn’t have an endorsement vote among its members and that he was awarding Murphy the county line based on conversations he’d had with other local leaders. Redwine is happy Jones now seems open to reform.

“I am glad to see his openness to a fairer ballot,” Redwine said, but she wants to see the timeline moved up. “The issue is that New Jersey needs fair ballots for the June primary.”