What Tammy Murphy’s Failed Senate Campaign Says About New Jersey’s Changing Politics

New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy blamed the fear of negative campaigning for her withdrawal Sunday from the state’s closely watched Democratic Senate primary, but far more significant factors led her to such an unenviable fork in the road.

Murphy’s exit makes Rep. Andy Kim the favorite in the Garden State’s June contest to determine who will succeed federally indicted Sen. Bob Menendez, and the instant frontrunner in the Democratic-leaning state’s general election in November. Menendez, initially the target of Kim and Murphy’s campaigns, announced Thursday that he would not seek the Democratic nomination.

“I’ve been genuine and factual throughout, but it is clear to me that continuing in this race will involve waging a very divisive and negative campaign, which I am not willing to do,” Murphy said in a video announcement Sunday on social media.

Murphy is not wrong about what it would have taken to even have a shot at defeating Kim, given his momentum and lead in the polls.

Murphy significantly underestimated how Garden State Democrats would turn against the clubby machine politics that have long determined how power is wielded in the state. She lacked a good response to allegations that her chief selling point was her marriage to Gov. Phil Murphy, a fellow Goldman Sachs alum. And at key moments, Murphy’s campaign-trail performance reinforced the idea that she was leveraging connections to make up for a lack of conventional qualifications.

“She can’t get out from under this perception that it is her proximity to the governor’s office, her proximity to the governor, her proximity to their relationships with other Democratic elected officials that have her in this position,” Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider