Lets face it: this has been a pretty boring primary season. Despite the best efforts of Dean Phillips, Nikki Haley, and a few political columnists, Donald Trump and Joe Biden easily won the nominations of their respective parties, passing the necessary delegate threshold in last week’s state contests. Thus far, even the down ballot races have lacked much drama, thanks to both parties more or less falling in line behind their respective presidential nominees and avoiding the ugly ideological battles that have defined past cycles. 

Well, except for my home state. 

While the rest of the country is already getting ready for another battle between Biden and Trump, New Jersey has played host to one of the fiercest Democratic Senate primaries in recent memory, as Congressman Andy Kim and New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy face off to replace embattled incumbent Senator Bob Menendez. It’s a race that’s seen accusations of Twitter bullying and nepotism fly freely, but if you know anything about this race, it’s probably that it’s sparked a heated debate over something called the “county line.” And yet, if you’re not read into New Jersey politics, then you probably have no idea what the “county line” is; heck, I’m a New Jersey resident, and I didn’t fully understand until a few weeks ago. So to help those of you not lucky enough to be from the Garden State (and a few of you who are) wrap your head around what’s become a truly fascinating contest, I put together this handy Q & A, which will hopefully answer all of your questions about my home state’s odd brand of politics. 

So, what’s the deal with Bob Menendez? 

A former mayor, state legislator, and U.S. Congressman, Bob Menendez has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006, when he was appointed by Governor Jon Corzine to fill the seat Corzine himself had vacated after he was elected to the executive office in 2005. While Menendez has been dogged by accusations of impropriety since he stepped foot in the Senate, things truly began to take a turn for him in 2015, when he was first indicted by the Department of Justice for bribery, fraud, corruption, and making false statements. The charges stemmed from his relationship with Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist who provided Menendez with campaign donations and a series of improper, undisclosed gifts allegedly in exchange for using his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to pressure the government of the Dominican Republic to enforce contracts that benefited Melgen and fast-tracking visas for Melgen’s girlfriends. The case against Menendez ultimately ended in a mistrial, but he still stepped down as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and was issued an official “Letter of Admonition” from the Ethics Committee after they found that his dealing with Melgen violated Senate rules. 

Despite the indictments, Menendez was reelected in 2018, and even became Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee after Democrats flipped the Senate in 2020. But he was forced to step down from the committee again when federal investigators indicted him and his wife Nadine on a new round of corruption charges, alleging that he had been secretly funneling US intelligence to the Egyptian government and pressuring prosecutors to go easy on Fred Daibes, an Edgewater, New Jersey real estate developer. The FBI raided Menendez’s home, where they found $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes that were then stuffed in jackets, as well as over $100,000 worth of gold bars – gold bars that, it turns out, could have come from the Qatari royal family, who Menendez may have talked up in the Senate so that they could fund one of Daibes’ real estate developments, all purportedly in exchange for bribes like Formula One tickets and the aforementioned gold. If that weren’t enough, both Menendezes were later charged with obstruction of justice for lying about other bribes that they may have received from two other New Jersey businessmen in the form of car and mortgage payments.

Thus far, Menendez has insisted that he’s innocent, and the Democratic caucus is somewhat split on the issue. 26 of Menendez’s Democratic colleagues, including fellow New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, have called on him to resign, while Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who’s become perhaps the most vocal anti-Menendez voice in the party, has advocated for his expulsion. However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has remained relatively mum on the issue, declining to call for Menendez’s resignation but insisting he has had “serious discussions” with him about the charges. To complicate matters, Menendez hasn’t made a decision about whether or not he’ll run for reelection, and, if he does, if he’ll do so as a Democrat or an independent. Of course, it’s even an open question as to whether or not this would be an earnest run to keep his seat or if he’d just be doing it to raise money to pay off his legal bills. 

So, who’s running in the Democratic primary? 

This is where the controversy starts. Technically, four candidates are running in the Democratic primary to replace Menendez, but only two of them – Congressman Andy Kim and New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy – have a realistic shot of winning. Kim got the early jump by announcing his candidacy the day after Menendez was indicted, grabbing headlines and framing his run as a fight against corruption, an issue that’s long plagued New Jersey politics for most of the state’s history. Kim’s newfound image as an anti-corruption crusader only gained steam when Murphy, long rumored to be interested in the Senate run, entered the race and began an aggressive campaign to try and gain a leg up through the county line system.

Wait, what’s the county line? 

The best way I can explain this is probably by pointing you to this 2018 sample primary ballot from my hometown of Chatham Township. Take a look at the first column on the Democratic ballot – notice how each of those candidates have “Morris County Democratic Committee, Inc.” listed above their names? That’s because each of those candidates received the endorsement from Morris County’s Democratic Party, which entitles them to the “county line” – in other words, the first column of the ballot, where they’re listed alongside their fellow county party endorsees. 

All of the other candidates are relegated to the second or third columns, with the name of their lesser known organization (i.e., “Democrats for Change”) listed as their endorsee instead. This may seem like an overly wonky concern, but a recent study by Julia Sass Rubin shows that receiving the county line significantly boosts a candidate’s chances of winning the primary (after all, who’d you rather vote for, someone who looks like they’re a part of a team, or some weird loner in an incomplete column?). So, for the past few months, Murphy and Kim have been campaigning across the state to win as many county lines as possible to try and ensure that their name is listed first on the ballot and, ostensibly, first in voters’ minds. 

So, who decides who wins the county line?

That entirely depends on which of New Jersey’s 21 counties you’re talking about! In 14 of them, the endorsement is decided at an “open convention,” wherein members of the county party vote on which candidate they’d like to endorse. Of course, even these open conventions vary in how that vote takes place – some cast a secret ballot that protects the voters’ identity, while others vote by a public show of hands. Considering that first, the political cost of publicly voting against the governor’s wife; and second, the fact that many of the county chairs convening these votes have either received big donations from the multimillionaire governor or been appointed by him to state jobs, it should be no surprise that all of Kim’s victories have come via a secret ballot (speaking to NJ.com, one Kim supporter in Monmouth County, which Kim won in an upset, compared the process to “the mafia”). Of course, it’s worth pointing out that even county parties that vote by secret ballot aren’t free from their own shenanigans: in Atlantic County, delegates were required to pay $40 to attend their own convention (Kim wound up winning 74% of the vote). 

But hey, at least Atlantic County Democrats got to vote. In New Jersey’s seven other counties, the county line recipient is determined by either a committee of the county’s various municipal chairs, or by the county chair alone (Middlesex County technically has an open convention, but only to “ratify” the selections made by the county chair). Would it shock you to learn that Murphy has won the endorsement in every county that selects their county line candidates through either committee or chair selection? Considering that those county chairs include people appointed by the governor to the Port Authority Board (like Middlesex’s Kevin McCabbe) or holding contracts with state run agencies (like Passaic’s John Currie), it really shouldn’t!

Wow, that sounds kind of corrupt!

It kind of is, and it’s become the central issue of the campaign. The truth of the matter is that, outside of Kim’s unwillingness to back Medicare for All, the two candidates don’t differ much on policy. But the perception that the state’s party bosses are doing everything in their power to elevate someone who’s never held office before over a three-term congressman all because she’s married to the governor has allowed Kim to turn his candidacy into a populist crusade, even if he’s not likely to be any more liberal or conservative than the median Democrat. 

It doesn’t help that Murphy and her allies have made a series of blunders that have made them look both chagrined that they even have to run a primary campaign and scared that they’ll end up losing to Kim. Shortly before the College Democrats of New Jersey and College Democrats of America jointly endorsed Kim, a youth coordinator for the state Democratic Party made a series of phone calls warning that the endorsement could impact “funding, and future job prospects for leaders of the College Democrats” (the Murphy campaign denied that they directed the coordinator to do this). A month later, the Murphy campaign released a list of endorsements from prominent Monmouth County Democrats, only for it to be revealed that not everyone on the list had in fact committed to endorsing the First Lady. In Burlington County, New Jersey Senate Minority Whip Troy Singleton tried to broker a deal between the two campaigns that would’ve let both candidates share the party line, a deal that Kim alleged was cooked up by the Murphy campaign, and one that he refused to accept unless Murphy committed to sharing the line in every county. Hunterdon County Chairwoman Arlene Quiñones Perez proposed that any candidate who received at least 30% of the convention votes appear on the line, but this deal was defeated when put to a vote, and Kim won the line outright instead.

Alleged pressure campaigns targeted Kim supporters in Somerset and Hudson counties, but things really came to a head in Camden, where Kim’s request to speak to the county leadership meeting was refused, and where longshot candidate Patricia Campos-Medina was physically prevented from entering the meeting by guards. The last dustup was enough for Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, an early Murphy supporter who’s running to succeed her husband as governor in 2025, to switch his support to Kim and call for Murphy to drop out of the race.

Somebody should really do something about this!

They’re trying! In February, Kim filed a federal lawsuit against 19 county clerks alleging that the county line system is unconstitutional, an effort that’s been supported by progressive groups such as End Citizens United and the League of Women Voters, as well as some not-so-progressive groups, like the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, and some groups in between, like the ACLU. On Sunday, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin filed a brief saying that his office would not defend the county line in court, which is notable at least in the sense that Platkin was appointed to office by… Governor Phil Murphy, who it seems would very much like the county line to remain in place.

In addition to the constitutionality of the county line, federal district judge Zahid Quraishi will also have to consider whether or not it’s feasible for New Jersey to change its ballot design in time for an April 20th deadline, which is when mail in ballot designs have to be finalized. In other words, it’s entirely possible that Kim loses this legal battle only to win the large constitutional war, being forced to live with the county line for 2024 but ridding it from future elections. 

But seeing as how the county lines are in place for the time being, who’s going to win?

Well, that really depends on how much weight you think the county line gives a candidate at all. Kim currently has nine county endorsements (including that of Sussex, which doesn’t have a county line) to Murphy’s seven, with four endorsements (Essex, Gloucester, Salem, and Cumberland) left to be made (the Cape May County party, perhaps sensing things were about to get ugly, opted not to endorse a candidate this year). But as we all know, land doesn’t vote: the counties Kim have won are home to only 34% of New Jersey Democratic voters, while those won by Murphy comprise 49%, a number that’s only likely to grow when the Gloucester and Essex County chairs make their likely endorsements of the First Lady. 

Of course, this race has attracted so much attention that it may not ultimately matter who gets what county line endorsement. In 1978, former New York Knicks star Bill Bradley won his first Senate primary against State Treasurer Richard Leone, who secured the support of numerous counties and then-governor Brendan Byrne, on his way to winning what would be three terms in the Senate. Given Kim’s current lead in the polls, it certainly seems possible that he could end up defeating the county line not only legally, but electorally, as well, demonstrating its obsolescence in both the courtroom and the ballot box.