For all the histrionics around Tammy Murphy’s 2024 run for U.S. Senate, finally and fundamentally the First Lady’s candidacy reveals an overriding (and concerning) reality, namely the establishment’s general lack of interest in that federal job. It’s an old truism in New Jersey politics, which the late U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) routinely mentioned, perhaps somewhat ruefully, at public events: the bosses care about the courthouse, not the U.S. House – and certainly not the U.S. Senate.

If the county party leaders received in ho hum fashion the astonishing news of sitting U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) allegedly working as an agent of Egypt in exchange for gold bars, they similarly coughed up the candidacy of the first lady with a collective shrug.

Who cares?

Oh, her husband, Governor Phil Murphy, will look more favorably on my county come budget time if we back his wife to replace Menendez, then I care. Then I can even issue a ringing endorsement.

And I don’t care if the public doesn’t care.

That’s the attitude, perhaps markedly notable for its complacency as the country descends into darkness. But it also contrasts dramatically with the interest those same coffee urn organizers have for the developing 2025 New Jersey governor’s contest, scheduled to happen a year after the U.S. Senate and presidential races.

That contest continues to accelerate, with nearly every political move in the state connected to the coming succession of Governor Phil Murphy.

Let’s take a look at where things stand right now, or, more to the point, who stands where, as New Jersey gears up early for a statewide governor’s race.

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