Applaud (almost) anyone who beats
the nepo candidate.
New Jersey's first lady Tammy Murphy is ending her Senate campaign, cutting short what was shaping up to be a protracted Democratic primary against Rep. Andy Kim.
Not sure how much this is "internal polling said we were fucked" and how much it is "the NJ Supreme Court is about to
overrule NJ's corrupt ballot practices and then the machine might have me killed" (don't think this invalidates the lawsuit, tho).
There was probably an element of “lose the battle, win the war” here. Lurking in the background of this race was a lawsuit to end the county line, which gives party bosses their power. Kim, while trying to win the Senate race despite the built-in disadvantages, had launched the lawsuit and sought an injunction against the county line, arguing that the ballot system is “fundamentally unjust and undemocratic.” The party bosses might have figured that, if Murphy were to drop out and they all endorsed Kim (which is what appears to have happened), Kim would drop the lawsuit, and they would retain the ballot weapon for future use.
They were wrong. Kim’s adviser Anthony DeAngelo immediately told the New Jersey Globe that the congressman still supported abolishing the county line; his case received a hearing from federal district court judge Zahid Quraishi last week. “The status of our injunction remains in the hands of the judge and we remain ready to strongly advocate for the changes the Congressman and so many others have called for,” DeAngelo said.
