Dave Greason drove in a rainstorm from Freehold to Asbury Park to hear Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez at the local VFW Hall.

The place was packed, and Greason made his way up to the front row.

A 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, Greason went to work for the state Department of Corrections and retired as a head nurse after getting injured in a riot at Marlboro State Hospital. InsiderNJ asked the lifelong Democrat, whose father had him on the pro-union picket line when he was a boy, who he backs for governor of New Jersey this year.

“Murphy,” Greason said without hesitation, referring to former Goldman Sachs executive and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Phil Murphy. “I do have questions about his connections,” he added, acknowledging the Democratic candidate’s Wall Street professional foundations. “But he’s a good guy, and he will fund the public pension systems, which is very important to me. I’m in the pension system.”