NJ-SEN: Tammy Murphy gets key placement on many NJ primary ballots, since Democratic bosses say so
Many of New Jersey’s Democratic Party organizations are already set to endorse Tammy Murphy for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Bob Menendez. The key endorsements would give her preferred placement on primary ballots in the state's bluest areas, but some members of those same organizations say the process shows New Jersey’s primary elections are deeply undemocratic.
In several of the state’s largest party organizations, the endorsement choice is made by county party bosses — either without any vote, or with only an advisory vote from the hundreds of community leaders meant to guide the party, according to interviews with more than a dozen people involved in the process.
“All the county chairs tripped over themselves to endorse Tammy Murphy,” said Robert Holzapfel, who is a plumber from Highland Park and an elected member of the Middlesex County Democratic Organization.
County political committees' endorsements are a source of political power in New Jersey. In all but two of the state’s 21 counties, the candidates endorsed by the party organization for the primary run together on a slate, and the members of those slates are grouped together in a column or row called the “county line” — which would likely have President Joe Biden at the top in the June 4 primary.
https://gothamist.com/news/tammy-murphy-gets-key-placement-on-many-nj-primary-ballots-since-democratic-bosses-say-so