NJ Governor’s Wife to Run for Robert Menendez’s Senate Seat

(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey First Lady Tammy Snyder Murphy said she will run for the US Senate seat now held by embattled Democrat Robert Menendez.

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Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who’s been married to Democratic Governor Phil Murphy for 30 years, announced her intention to run in 2024 in a video posted on YouTube. She has never held public office.

“Right now, Washington is filled with too many people more interested in getting rich or getting on camera than getting things done for you,” she said in the video, where she discusses maternal mortality and climate change. “We have big complicated issues and solving them won’t be easy, but you know what? Nothing worth doing ever is.”

The announcement is the latest sign state politicians have abandoned Menendez, who was indicted on bribery charges in New York federal court in September. Phil Murphy asked the state’s senior senator to resign hours after his indictment, a call later echoed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker, New Jersey’s other senator.

While Menendez has resisted those calls and remained mum on whether he’ll run for reelection next year, Democrats have been lining up to take his place.

Three-term US Representative Andy Kim, who represents Trenton and central New Jersey, has announced a bid. And Representative Donald Norcross of Camden said last month he wouldn’t rule out running for the seat.

Political analysts say Tammy Murphy’s name recognition and her husband’s ties to influential Democratic county chairs will give her an advantage over other challengers.

“She is a prolific fundraiser, and that is going to be the most important quality going into this race,” said Brigid Harrison, department chair and professor of political science and law at Montclair State University, pointing to the costs of buying legacy media ads in the expensive New York and Philadelphia suburbs.

Read more: Menendez Pleads Not Guilty in Egyptian Foreign Agent Case

Tammy Murphy, 58, works from offices one flight up from the governor in the Statehouse. Outside of Trenton, she has been on the boards of various philanthropic and academic institutions, including Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia and Phillip’s Academy Andover. She is also chair of National Women’s Soccer League team Gotham FC, of which she and her husband are founding owners.

‘Active Player’

“She has been an active player in the Murphy administration,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Polling Institute at Monmouth University. “She’s sitting at the table in helping to determine what the issue priorities are in the administration, certainly in areas of women’s health and basically the governor’s entire environmental and clean energy agenda.”

If elected, Tammy Murphy would be New Jersey’s first female senator and the only governor’s spouse ever sent directly to the US Senate by voters, according to the US Senate Historical Office.

Like her husband, Tammy Murphy worked at Goldman Sachs before pursuing public service. She focused on real estate and investment banking from 1987 to 1990 and then moved to Investcorp in Europe. The couple married in 1994, when Phil Murphy was leading Goldman’s operations in Germany.

Beyond her experience, Tammy Murphy will have to convince voters that she deserves the Democratic ticket despite spending years voting as a registered Republican. Murphy told NJ Advance Media that her political views changed in the mid-2000s. Phil Murphy was Democratic National Committee finance chair from 2006 to 2009, before being appointed as US ambassador to Germany by President Barack Obama.

“I’m so proud of everything we’ve accomplished, but I know there’s a lot more to do,” she said in the video. “That’s why I’m announcing this: I’m running for the United States Senate because we owe it to our kids to do better.”

(Updates with more comments from Tammy Murphy in final paragraph. A previously version misspelled the last name of the House minority leader.)

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