NJ-SEN 2024: Draggin' The Line (3/24: Murphy OUT)

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1773912407737573532https://twitter.com/StevenFulop/status/1774080114399084980

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

This is the Murphy endorsements all over again.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1774197958415626319https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774199358684049829

[Ferguson97]

lol this is going to be a logistical nightmare…

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/votesalmon/status/1774197737665302826

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1773912407737573532
https://twitter.com/StevenFulop/status/1774080114399084980

https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774095409377341832https://twitter.com/HeinisHardNews/status/1774210697653555652https://twitter.com/fairballotnj/status/1774226402499305582https://twitter.com/joechica91/status/1774221733333029020

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1773912407737573532
https://twitter.com/StevenFulop/status/1774080114399084980

https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774095409377341832
https://twitter.com/HeinisHardNews/status/1774210697653555652
https://twitter.com/fairballotnj/status/1774226402499305582
https://twitter.com/joechica91/status/1774221733333029020

https://twitter.com/fairballotnj/status/1774447262006972839https://twitter.com/VoteSalmon/status/1774393435241226589https://twitter.com/VoteSalmon/status/1774471363215970570

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1774197958415626319
https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774199358684049829

https://twitter.com/votesalmon/status/1774197737665302826

Conservative NJ Republicans now preparing an anti-Line lawsuit to apply to them too:

https://twitter.com/fsnowflack/status/1774602448146981155https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774483525313462301

Building on the success of the Kim suit, wouldn't a similar suit filed by Republicans be equally successful? After all, a precedent was just set last Friday.

And in fact, the America First Republicans of New Jersey, a MAGA group, says it plans to do just that.

Mike Crispi, the co-chair, said in a statement that his group already has recruited several plaintiffs and he invited "any Republican candidate, committee, and PAC who wants to see the constitutional rights of New Jersey Republicans protected as much as the Democrats" to join the action.

Isn't bipartisanship great?

Trump Republicans and liberal Democrats on the same team.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/fairballotnj/status/1774629355123044771

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1774835815371198892

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774873676187328589
Meanwhile, the GOP case was DOA, so Bashaw & Serrano Glasner are stuck with Lines:

https://newjerseyglobe.com/judiciary/albert-harshaw-attempts-to-appeal-county-line-decision-and-is-rejected/

(I)n a terse order, Quraishi said Harshaw "is a non-party to the lawsuit and therefore has no standing to pursue an appeal of the decision in this matter. Moreover, the deadline to move to intervene as to the motion for preliminary injunction has passed. Therefore, the arguments presented will not be considered by this Court."

Quraishi left the door open to Harshaw joining a longer-term lawsuit against the county line which has been going on since 2020; that suit aims to completely abolish the line rather than simply suspend it for this year, as the preliminary injunction filed by Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) and two others did.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774873676187328589

Meanwhile, the GOP case was DOA, so Bashaw & Serrano Glasner are stuck with Lines:

https://newjerseyglobe.com/judiciary/albert-harshaw-attempts-to-appeal-county-line-decision-and-is-rejected/

(I)n a terse order, Quraishi said Harshaw "is a non-party to the lawsuit and therefore has no standing to pursue an appeal of the decision in this matter. Moreover, the deadline to move to intervene as to the motion for preliminary injunction has passed. Therefore, the arguments presented will not be considered by this Court."

Quraishi left the door open to Harshaw joining a longer-term lawsuit against the county line which has been going on since 2020; that suit aims to completely abolish the line rather than simply suspend it for this year, as the preliminary injunction filed by Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) and two others did.

https://twitter.com/joe_bouvier/status/1774885540388614638https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774891307002888453

[kwabbit]

Does anyone have some inside knowledge on the state of the GOP primary? Bashaw obviously has more lines but neither seem that attractive to the GOP base. It doesn’t matter with Kim at the topic of the ticket, but with Murphy the primary could’ve been impactful.

[Blair]

An interesting observation is how the post 2016 Democratic party grassroots revival, especially in NJ, might have changed things in a way that some people still don't realise; my impression is that NJ was very much in the top 5 states where suddenly a lot of people who were life-long liberals/progressives etc realised they needed to get involved; it had a number of competitive house races etc.

This ofc also happens on a national level and while we joke about resistance wine mums there is certainly a type and a profile, and this energy went straight to Kim.

And this race was basically created for this; deeply unpopular sitting incumbent faces trial, wife of sitting Governor (who is an ex party finance chair) essentially tries to muscle the nomination away from the plucky grassroots congressman

[LabourJersey]

An interesting observation is how the post 2016 Democratic party grassroots revival, especially in NJ, might have changed things in a way that some people still don't realise; my impression is that NJ was very much in the top 5 states where suddenly a lot of people who were life-long liberals/progressives etc realised they needed to get involved; it had a number of competitive house races etc.

This ofc also happens on a national level and while we joke about resistance wine mums there is certainly a type and a profile, and this energy went straight to Kim.

And this race was basically created for this; deeply unpopular sitting incumbent faces trial, wife of sitting Governor (who is an ex party finance chair) essentially tries to muscle the nomination away from the plucky grassroots congressman

Your impressions about NJ are mostly correct.

There's a lot of people in New Jersey who were either apolitical or moderate/centrist Republicans who were completely alienated by the rise of Trump and the 2016 election. These people - college educated, white collar, living in dense, transit-centric suburbs - now by and large vote Democratic, and some have gotten involved in Democratic politics in ways they'd never have imagined 10 or 15 years ago.

But even though they are nominally Democratic, they still dislike the NJ Democratic machine, which entices them to a reform candidate who knows how to win moderate Republicans like Kim.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1774954911026815332

[brucejoel99]

Does anyone have some inside knowledge on the state of the GOP primary? Bashaw obviously has more lines but neither seem that attractive to the GOP base. It doesn’t matter with Kim at the topic of the ticket, but with Murphy the primary could’ve been impactful.

https://twitter.com/lawliberg/status/1774911241598685635

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1775242589773459910

[brucejoel99]

The Line is dead, long live office-block ballots:

https://twitter.com/pocryphal/status/1775599127541211354https://twitter.com/yaelbromberg/status/1775596126558720459https://twitter.com/votesalmon/status/1775599729994236237

[brucejoel99]

The Line is dead, long live office-block ballots:

https://twitter.com/pocryphal/status/1775599127541211354
https://twitter.com/yaelbromberg/status/1775596126558720459
https://twitter.com/votesalmon/status/1775599729994236237

https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1775631529139437908
Clerks beginning to move on from the denial stage of grief & straight into acceptance:

https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1775648897802682722https://twitter.com/smb_democracy/status/1775661315102548265

[brucejoel99]

I'm still holding to Indy Bob ultimately going nowhere, it's just so foreseeable:

Assuming Menendez follows through, the landscape for the Senate race this fall will be either Andy Kim or Tammy Murphy on the Democratic ticket, a Republican and then, the "independent" Menendez, who is really a Democrat.

Wisdom suggests whatever votes the embattled incumbent gets will come from Democrats, which has to help Republicans.

And Lord knows, they need the help, given the fact it's been more than 50 years since Republicans have won a U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey. And that was Clifford Case, the type of Republican who would be labeled a "RINO" today.

Moving back to 2024, "wisdom" aside, it's worth wondering just how stellar of a candidate Menendez is going to be?

Watch political races for a while and you discover that independents always "poll better" than they actually do. That was true years ago with Ross Perot nationally and more recently (in 2009) when Chris Daggett ran as an independent for governor. He was well received during the campaign, but was no factor at all when voters actually went to the polls. Daggett got a bit less than 6 percent.

Already, some have suggested that Menendez may draw from Latino voters. That seems a bit insulting, no?

Many different ethnic groups make up the so-called bloc of Latino voters and they all don't think a lot. Moreover, let's not assume Latinos are going to back an ethically-challenged politician just because he's named Menendez.

This brings us to the senator's social media video announcing his run as an independent.

The gist of it was that he plans to be "in the clear" a few months before Election Day.

"I am hopeful that my exoneration will take place this summer," he says.

The trial is scheduled to begin in early May, so it's possible it can be over by July.

Of course, the senator is banking on being found "not guilty." Anything can happen at trial, but to any objective observer, the allegations about Menendez having oodles of cash hidden in his house, plus the infamous gold bars, seems pretty damning.

One must also ask, "Why?"

Why does Menendez want to run as an independent? On one hand, it's an acknowledgement that he has no chance to get the Democratic nomination.

On the other, he may truly think he's not guilty and may not care at all if his entry into the race hurts his fellow Democrats – even in a small way.

https://twitter.com/MattFriedmanNJ/status/1775619027034927578

[Ferguson97]

Clerks beginning to move on from the denial stage of grief & straight into acceptance:

Yup. They realized that the longer this goes on, the harder their jobs are.

[brucejoel99]

Clerks beginning to move on from the denial stage of grief & straight into acceptance:

Yup. They realized that the longer this goes on, the harder their jobs are.

Yep:

https://twitter.com/yaelbromberg/status/1775871356485202204

[brucejoel99]

Gd:

https://twitter.com/yaelbromberg/status/1775920030225445374https://twitter.com/danieljhan_/status/1775929577766015486

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/pocryphal/status/1775930998024548626https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1775954662006366477