The similarities connecting the Andy Kim vs. Tammy Murphy Senate primary and the 2008 Democratic presidential race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are genuine. The former first lady was the establishment candidate, but Obama focused on grassroots organizing to win smaller states, beginning with the Iowa caucuses, to establish his momentum.
Numbers don’t lie, and #Kimentum is real. The three-term congressman and former Obama White House staffer’s early juggernaut continues with this third consecutive blowout convention victory over First Lady Tammy Murphy. And his ability to snag an endorsement from NOW, the nation’s largest grassroots advocacy group, is a big deal. Less important was Howard Dean’s announcement that he supports Murphy.
Kim had an extraordinarily good weekend, winning Democratic conventions in his home county of Burlington with 90% and Hunterdon with 62%; that followed a 57%-39% win in Monmouth last week. Hunterdon, small and less significant in a statewide primary, is very much a retail politics contest on the Democratic side; both candidates were calling county committee members directly. Like last week, both sides thought the Hunterdon vote would be closer.
As New Jersey’s convention season continues, here are some takeaways:
1. There is no way Kim will cede shared lines in his counties without a similar commitment from the big county lines that are expected to go for Murphy. Hail Mary line share moves in Burlington and Hunterdon validate that. The outcome might have been different had Murphy accepted the line share offer in Monmouth. (There was never any talk of a shared line in Passaic, where a small screening committee put Murphy on their line.)
2. Murphy has still not broken 40% in a convention county. That number is significant because Mercer County rules allow any candidate with 40% of the vote to run on their line. Some view a last-minute arbitrary proposal in Hunterdon to enable candidates who receive 30% to be on the line as a signal that Team Tammy had a decent read on their count (33%).
3. Hunterdon was Kim’s first test in a county with no pre-existing relationships; Burlington was his home county, and he represents western Monmouth in Congress.
4. Murphy’s attack on Tom Malinowski after the former congressman endorsed Kim didn’t turn out to be a good idea. Malinowski lives in Hunterdon – he won his first convention there six years ago with 59% of the vote – and many of his supporters didn’t care for the hit.
5. The U.S. Senate campaign of Patricia Campos-Medina is not going well. She received three votes in Burlington (1%) and nine in her home county, Hunterdon (4.6%).
6. State Sen. Troy Singleton’s announcement that he would vote for a bill to abolish county lines is significant. Singleton had advocated for shared lines, especially in the race for Kim’s open NJ-3 House seat, and he is the first South Jersey lawmaker to voice any support for reforms in the way political parties nominate their candidates.
7. There was less attention on the Republican race this week. Christine Serrano Glassner won a convention in her home county of Morris, and Curtis Bashaw scored his first win with a victory at the Atlantic County GOP convention on Saturday.
8. Herb Conaway has now won two conventions, and will share the Burlington line with Andy Kim.
9. Kim’s ability to win conventions will translate into money as he makes the case to donors that they can be on the winning side.
10. Next up on the convention schedule are the North and South Dakota of New Jersey: Sussex on March 2 and Warren on March 3. These are small counties and outliers: Sussex and Warren are the only counties Bernie Sanders carried against Clinton in 2016. The real contest comes on March 4 in the state’s largest county, Bergen. This is the first convention in a Democratic-controlled county where many county committee members (and/or their families) owe their livelihood to the party organization. Murphy has landed about 100 endorsements from voters and influencers, but Kim is working the group hard.