Tammy Murphy announces bid for U.S. Senate in N.J.

Following Menendez indictment, First Lady prepares to challenge incumbent in ’24 Democratic primary

Pledging to protect abortion rights, end gun violence, and defend democracy, First Lady Tammy Murphy today announced that she would seek the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by indicted incumbent Bob Menendez.

The race pits Murphy, the wife of Gov. Phil Murphy, a businesswoman, and the mother of four, in a primary fight with three-term Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) – and possibly with Menendez, who has refused to say if he plans to seek re-election next year.

“From gun violence and mass shootings to a warming planet that threatens our children’s future, to extreme politicians who want to defund Planned Parenthood and ban abortion in all fifty states, including New Jersey,” said Murphy.  “I’m running for the United States Senate because New Jersey’s kids and families deserve better – plain and simple.”

In her bid to become the first woman to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, Murphy launched her campaign with a video that talks about her own story as a young woman in global finance – she met her future husband while working at Goldman Sachs – and the challenges of being “the only woman at the table,” something that caused her to “work twice as hard.”

“As I look around the country, there’s so much more to do, and we need a Senator who will work every single day to lower the cost of living, protect abortion rights, end the gun violence epidemic, and defend our democracy,” she said.

Read the New Jersey Globe’s interview with Murphy here.

As first lady, Murphy has maintained a high profile – arguably the most governmentally consequential in modern history – with a statehouse office, a policy portfolio, and a vital role within the Democratic Party as a mammoth fundraiser.

Murphy touts her signature achievement in her announcement video: enhancing maternal and infant health, and extirpating institutional racism women of color face in pregnancy and childbirth to bring down the number of avertible deaths.

“My parents taught me to never back down from a challenge or shy away from injustice, and that’s how we’ve dramatically reduced the rate at which mothers and babies are dying around childbirth in our state, and incorporated climate change education into our school curriculum,” said Murphy.  “These weren’t small fights or simple problems to solve, but nothing worth doing ever is.”

Her initiative, Nurture NJ, helped New Jersey move from 47th in the U.S. for maternal deaths to 37th and expanded Medicaid coverage for women for one year after childbirth.   The March of Dimes Annual Report Card found maternal health in 47 states declined last year, but New Jersey, Kansas, Montana, and North Dakota improved.

“When I was pregnant and even after they were born, I worried about a million things like all moms do, but I never worried if I’d survived childbirth or if my babies would get the care they needed,” Murphy said.  “I didn’t have to– the money in our family’s bank account, and frankly, the color of my skin, meant I could get the best care available.

She also takes some credit for establishing the nation’s first Office of Climate Change Education to train teachers and establish a core K-12 curriculum to teach children about climate change.  Murphy has also worked with former Vice President Al Gore on the Climate Reality Project and is the honorary chair of the New Jersey Council on the Green Economy.

“Combating climate change has been a focus of mine for decades, because the environment our kids grow up in can be the difference in childhood asthma, cancer rates and so many other things,” she said.

Murphy will likely become the candidate of party insiders against Kim, securing organization lines – and preferential ballot placement – in the June 2024 primary.

She is expected to quickly gain the endorsements of three of New Jersey’s most powerful Democratic county chairmen: Kevin McCabe of Middlesex, LeRoy Jones, Jr. of Essex, and Paul Juliano of Bergen.   Democratic powerbroker George Norcross has hinted that Murphy will get most of the county lines in South Jersey.

Still, Murphy, a first-time candidate, will need to face Kim in some competitive county conventions next year, including Atlantic, Mercer, Monmouth, Ocean and Hunterdon, and overcome allegations of nepotism as Phil Murphy works to deliver endorsements to his wife.

Kim has announced his support for a move to abolish the county line, a system that offers preferential ballot positions to party-endorsed candidates.

Menendez, who has served in the Senate since 2006, was indicted in September on bribery, conspiracy, and acting as an unregistered foreign government agent.  This is the third criminal probe involving Menendez and his second indictment.  In 2016, a jury could not reach a verdict on federal charges that illegally accepted gifts in exchange for work he did in the Senate; the charges were later dropped, but the Senate Ethics Committee admonished him.

While Murphy stopped short of mentioning Menendez by name, her launch video used footage of the three-term senator as Murphy said, “Washington is filled with too many people more interested in getting rich.”

Murphy supported Menendez when he ran for re-election in 2018.

Governor Murphy has said he would not appoint his wife to the Senate if Menendez were to resign.

Murphy, 58, grew up in Virginia Beach, where her father, a U.S. Air Force veteran, owned eleven auto dealerships.   After graduating from the University of Virginia, she joined Goldman Sachs and worked in London for a time.  After marrying Phil Murphy in 1993, she lived in Germany and Hong Kong while he ran the firm’s offices there.

While her husband was the Democratic National Committee finance chairman from 2006 to 2009, both teamed up to raise an estimated $300 million, helping to flip the Senate and House in 2006 and paving the way for Democrats to regain the White House in 2008.   They lived in Berlin from 2009 to 2013 while her husband was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany.

As chair of the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, Murphy helped raise over $65 million to support vulnerable families and non-profit and faith organizations.

Murphy is chairman of the NJ/NJ Gotham FC professional women’s soccer team she owns with her husband and other partners, including former Giants quarterback Eli Manning, former WNBA star Sue Bird, and Carli Lloyd Hollins, a former Olympic gold medalist and Women’s World Cup champion.

The Murphys, which won the National Women’s Soccer League championship on Saturday, faced criticism in 2018 after former players complained about the teams’ facilities and housing.

Murphy helped create a New Jersey chapter of Golden Seeds, which provides angel investments to women entrepreneurs.

The 41-year-old Kim, whose parents are Korean immigrants, was a Rhodes Scholar who worked at the U.S. Department of State and was a civilian advisor to Generals David Petraeus and John Allen in Afghanistan.  He served as a National Security Council staffer in Barack Obama’s White House.

In 2018, Kim narrowly unseated a two-term Republican congressman in New Jersey’s 3rd district and was re-elected by eight points in a district that Donald Trump won twice.  Redistricting made his district more Democratic – heavily Republican Ocean County was replaced by lean-Republican towns in western Monmouth and strongly Republican municipalities in Mercer County —  and Kim won by twelve points.

Like Murphy, Kim highlights his children as his reason for running for the U.S. Senate.

Lawrence Hamm, a former Newark school board member and civil rights activist, is also seeking the Senate nomination. A Latina activist, Patricia Campos-Medina, is also mulling a Senate bid.

“Democrats haven’t had a strong primary matchup like this in a very long time.  Both will be well-financed and able to effectively communicate their message,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University.  “Voters often wish they had choices, and in this primary, they will.”

The winner of the Democratic primary becomes the heavy favorite in the general election.  Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate race in New Jersey since 1972; 48 other states have elected a GOP senator since then.  Only Hawaii has gone longer.

The early front-runner for the Republican nomination is Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner.  A former George W. Bush administration appointee, Serrano Glassner’s husband, Michael, held national leadership roles in Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.  Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) says he’ll make a final decision about a Senate run in January.

Murphy becomes the second First Lady of New Jersey to run for public office if she wins.  Helen Stevenson Meyner (D-Phillipsburg), whose husband was governor from 1954 to 1962, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and spent four years as a congresswoman.

A primary win would make Murphy the first female Democratic U.S. Senate nominee since 1930, when 32-year-old Thelma Parkinson was slotted to run for a ten-week unexpired term in a bid by party leaders to attract women who had been voting for just a decade to back their candidate for six-year-term, Alexander Simpson, a state senator from Jersey City.

New Jersey is one of seventeen states that have never been represented by a woman in the Senate.  In addition to Parkinson, Republicans Millicent Fenwick (1982), Mary Mochary (1984), and Christine Whitman (1990) ran unsuccessfully.

Three of New Jersey’s last six U.S. Senators – Bill Bradley, Frank Lautenberg, and Jon Corzine – began their political careers in the Senate.

Five dozen women have served in the U.S. Senate, with 25 currently serving.