Tammy Murphy, the state’s first lady, has ousted her campaign manager, Max Glass, amid growing concerns among New Jersey’s political establishment about her incompetent performance in a Democratic U.S. Senate primary race that is heavily rigged in her favor.
The decision resulted after Murphy’s ineptitude was viewed in several early battles against Representative Andy Kim, one of her opponents in a race for the Democratic nomination.
The reasons behind Glass’s dismissal remain undisclosed, though it looks more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic than a critical realignment for Murphy’s candidacy.
Also competing for the Democratic nomination in the June 4 primary are Larry Hamm, a longtime civil rights activist who served on the Newark school board, and Patricia Campos-Medina, who runs the Worker Institute at Cornell University.
Murphy’s campaign spokesperson, Alex Altman, confirmed the departure of Glass, saying the campaign was grateful for his contributions, although no replacement has been announced, leaving the campaign in a transitional phase.
Glass is married to Mollie Binotto, who managed Governor Murphy’s 2021 re-election campaign, which barely defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli with 51.2% of the vote and lost 11 of the state’s 21 counties. A year earlier, President Joe Biden defeated Republican Donald Trump by more than 700,000 votes.
Despite being initially perceived as a front-runner with substantial support from key party figures, including her husband, Governor Philip D. Murphy, Tammy Murphy has struggled to gain traction against Kim.
Recent polling data, including a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, has consistently placed Murphy behind Kim among likely Democratic voters.
This setback, coupled with her loss at a Monmouth County convention, which gave Kim a prominent spot on the primary ballot, underscores the challenges facing Murphy’s campaign.
Critics have pointed to issues of nepotism and a perceived lack of political experience as potential factors contributing to Murphy’s struggles.
Additionally, some progressives have accused establishment figures of lacking the ability to resonate with grassroots voters.
The three top candidates—Murphy, Kim, and Campos-Medina,—all supported Menendez in 2018, when Lisa McCormick took nearly four of ten votes cast away from the corrupt incumbent.
“At the height of the Bush-Cheney era, when tax policies were systematically engineered to benefit the ultra-rich, Tammy Murphy chose to align herself with the very architects of inequality,” said McCormick. “While the Bush administration slashed taxes for the wealthiest Americans, enabling them to amass even greater fortunes while evading their fair share of taxes, Tammy Murphy was writing hefty checks to Republicans, perpetuating a system rigged in favor of the wealthy.”
The departure of Glass marks a significant shift in strategy for Murphy’s campaign, raising questions about its future direction and ability to regain momentum in the primary race. One prominent Democratic activist highlighted the tone-deaf Democrat’s insensitivity by revealing that the Governor and his wife dined with a toxic couple, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
With the Democratic conventions in Burlington and Hunterdon counties imminent, the decision carries weight as it could influence the party’s support for candidates on the ballot line.
While Murphy’s campaign remains optimistic about its prospects, the staffing change underscores the challenges ahead as the primary race intensifies.
Despite spending more than $22 million on his campaign and lavishly disbursing personal funds to secure support among party bosses, Governor Murphy could not earn 50 percent of the vote in his first 2017 primary, when he was confronted by former U.S. Treasury official Jim Johnson, Assemblyman John Wisniewski, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, Tenafly Council President Mark Zinna, and former firefighter Bill Brennan.
As Tammy Murphy seeks to navigate baby steps as if they are hurdles, her opponents, including Kim and Patricia Campos-Medina, hope to capitalize on any perceived weaknesses in her candidacy.
Kim’s campaign declined to comment on the staff shakeup, while Campos-Medina suggested that Murphy’s team was facing a reality check regarding the competitiveness of the race.
With the primary election scheduled for June 4, the weeks ahead will be pivotal in determining the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Robert Menendez.
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