Rep. Andy Kim has already stunned New Jersey with his surging run for US Senate. Now he might turn the state’s entire political culture on its head.
Kim, a Democrat, scored an early victory Sunday when his chief primary rival, New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy, unexpectedly dropped out of the race.
But as soon as this week, a federal judge could also rule on Kim’s lawsuit seeking to eliminate “the Line,” a distinctive New Jersey practice that gives huge advantages to candidates who win county party endorsements—and in turn empowers political warlords who frequently control those endorsements, and dominate the state’s politics.
Kim sued to end the practice after influential power brokers threw their weight behind Murphy, the onetime favorite in the Senate race. Her withdrawal represented a tacit acknowledgment of the grassroots wave propelling Kim and pushing for reform.
He’s now almost certain to replace scandal-scarred Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who isn’t running for the Democratic nomination. But the court case could reverberate beyond this one race, potentially reshaping the state’s political landscape.
“It would be an earthquake, politically,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers University professor who has studied the Line’s effects. “We are a machine-controlled state and what undergirds those machines, number one, is the county line.”
With the primary filing deadline Monday, a ruling could come within days. The timing is crucial, as any change to the system this year will have to leave time for ballots to be printed before the June 4 vote. Kim, his fellow plaintiffs, and the county clerks he’s suing have all already made their arguments, though new filings are due Monday.
If Judge Zahid N. Quraishi bars the Line, it could significantly weaken the grip of the state’s political machines, leave incumbents newly vulnerable to challenges, and open the door to a wider range of candidates, according to interviews with 13 political professionals and experts.
It would scramble the race for governor in 2025. Most political experts also say it would create new opportunities for candidates with fewer political connections, particularly women and people of color in one of the country’s most diverse states, because it would undercut the influence of largely White male power brokers.
Under the system, endorsed contenders are grouped together, usually with the highest-profile incumbent at the top. That means this year primary voters will see the chosen Democrats in a column or row led by President
The system explains why, despite New Jersey’s liberal politics, it hasn’t seen a political figure like Rep.
Ending the Line “allows for more outside voices, new voices,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics. “That can be dangerous if you want to maintain the status quo.”
Kim, if he goes on to win the Democratic primary against the handful of little-known rivals still running, would be a rare New Jersey candidate to prevail while having the most powerful party machines lined up against him.
Only three state legislators have lost in the last 20 years while holding the county line, Rubin found in a study. No sitting US House member has lost in the past 50 years while having the endorsements, except in one instance in which two incumbents were drawn together in redistricting. Rubin served as an expert witness in the lawsuit challenging the system, but is not affiliated with Kim’s effort.
In many counties the endorsements, and preferable placement, are decided not in a vote, but by a small slate of party insiders—sometimes just the chair.
Rubin studied ballots across the country and found none like it. In other states, all the candidates for each office are typically grouped together in one list.
Some of the most significant effects of the Line are in lower profile races, such for county offices or state legislature, where voters have little information about the individual candidates.
“It’s really difficult for state legislators to have any independence. If they don’t vote the way these folks want them to, they lose the Line, and then they lose their election,” Rubin said.
A Symbolic Fight
Kim’s campaign, and his push against the Line, had elevated the primary race from a typical political contest to a symbolic fight over the state’s murky political ethics.
His success shows the simmering progressive energy and frustration that has been pushing for reform for years.
Murphy, whose husband
Within days of launching her campaign in November she was endorsed by a wave of party leaders who hold hammerlocks on county endorsements, and the favorable ballot position those convey.
But with the backdrop of the salacious bribery charges against Menendez—a New Jersey fixture for decades—the perception of another kind of insider-dealing sparked a ferocious backlash.
“There is an arrogance” about the endorsements, said Walsh, of Rutgers. Party power brokers “completely misread where the public is now.”
In 40 years watching New Jersey politics, she said, she’d never seen this much discussion of the power of the state’s ballot.
Ironically, by trying to wield their power, party officials may lose it, said Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist who once worked on Phil Murphy’s gubernatorial campaign but fell out with him over his handling of a sexual assault complaint against one of his aides.
“They are so short-sighted in endorsing Tammy the way they did, because they have unleashed a tsunami of grassroots resentment,” Roginsky said.
Kim, a former Rhodes scholar with a wonkish demeanor, was well positioned to ride the revolt. It was driven in large part by new activists who got engaged in politics after Donald Trump’s rise, and who helped Kim flip a longtime Republican House seat in 2018.
“We really showed the energy that’s out there in every single corner of New Jersey,” Kim said in an interview Friday.
Murphy had trailed by double digits in early polls and would likely have had to tear down Kim to rally. In a video posted on X Sunday, she said continuing her campaign would “involve waging a very divisive and negative campaign, which I am not willing to do.”
The Democratic primary winner is almost certain to win the Senate seat: New Jersey hasn’t elected a Republican to the chamber since 1972. Menendez has proclaimed his innocence and said Thursday he won’t run as a Democrat, but may campaign as an independent if he’s exonerated before the June filing deadline for independents.
After Murphy dropped out, Kim praised her, and though his statement didn’t specifically mention his lawsuit, he said: “We will continue our efforts to strengthen our democracy in New Jersey while we come together to stand up against the dangerous agenda pushed by Trump.”
The lawyers in the case said on Sunday that Murphy’s withdrawal wouldn’t impact it, and that they were still pressing for an injunction to bar the Line from this year’s ballot.
Party leaders appear to have belatedly recognized the mood. The top Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature issued a statement last week saying they were open to changes in the state’s ballot system, but didn’t commit to specific alterations.
The judge gets to weigh in next.
‘Unjust and undemocratic’
The lawsuit that Kim and some other less prominent candidates filed in late February called the Line “unjust and undemocratic” and asked the state to order county clerks to arrange the ballots by office, not endorsement.
Lawyers for the clerks, including attorneys aligned with party bosses, argued that party organizations and candidates have a right to associate however they choose.
State Attorney General Matt Platkin, who was appointed by Gov. Murphy, declined to defend the system, calling it unconstitutional. Judge Quraishi, who sits in Trenton, has asked both sides for filings by Monday on whether he should consider Platkin’s argument.
Monday is also the deadline to file for the Democratic and Republican primaries, after which clerks begin preparing ballots.
The judge’s ruling could also be appealed, potentially delaying its effects.
Some operatives downplayed the possible impact of eliminating the Line. They say its might is overstated, and that even without it county organizations can still campaign, advertise, and get out the vote for their preferred picks. Defenders of the system say it allows party leaders to pick the most electable candidates, weeding out fringe figures and extremists.
Its critics say voters should make those choices.
“Everyone gets one vote,” Kim said.
The case is Kim et al v. Hanlon D.N.J., No. 3:24-cv-01098, 02/26/24.
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