Members of Bergen County’s Democratic Committee will vote on Monday night on which candidate to endorse in the New Jersey race for United States Senate — a key test of whether Rep. Andy Kim’s groundswell of support among rank-and-file Democrats can overcome the influence of party bosses who lined up to support First Lady Tammy Murphy.
Kim says he has felt stifled in his outreach to Bergen Democrats, blaming the influence of party chairman and Murphy supporter Paul Juliano. But county party spokesperson Adam Silverstein has denied that assertion and said the complaints are coming mainly from Kim and just a few of his supporters.
Bergen has the second-largest number of registered Democrats of any county in the state. It also has a larger population of Democrats than any other county where party members vote on their organizational endorsement, which comes with preferential treatment on primary ballots. That makes it the most important contest before the primary itself, in June.
In many other counties, party chairs decide who will get the organizational endorsement and, with it, placement on what’s called the “county line.” The line groups favored candidates as a slate in a single column or row, signaling legitimacy to voters.
The names of candidates vying for the same positions are put on other lines — sometimes alone — in what critics of the system call “ballot Siberia.” When Murphy announced her candidacy, she received personal endorsements from nine chairs, including Bergen’s and those of most of the other counties with the largest number of registered Democrats in the state.
Kim says he had wanted to attend a monthly meeting of Bergen Democrats, called “Saturday with Dems,” after Murphy was invited to the January session.
“I asked for the same opportunity to be afforded to me as someone who is a candidate, and I was given a date after the Bergen County convention,” he said. “That doesn’t help at all if I’m not able to address the…
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