PARAMUS – Andy Kim had the bigger crowd outside the meeting hall Monday night. They were an enthusiastic bunch as they waved signs and chanted their support for the congressman from District 3.

The problem soon became obvious – many of Kim’s supporters outside were not members of the Bergen County Democratic Committee, and as such, could not vote.

County committees by definition are an “insiders’ game.”

But some committees have more insiders than others. That seemed to be the case in Bergen where Tammy Murphy for the first time in six tries beat Kim at an open convention. In fact, she won rather comfortably by more than 300 votes.

The First Lady was backed by Paul Juliano, the county’s Democratic chair, who has strong credentials as an insider.  After all, he was recently installed as president and CEO of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, a pretty good public job for sure.

Before that, Juliano grew up in Fairview, a gritty borough just a few blocks north of Hudson County where he had a few jobs, including public works director. With that blue collar background, it’s no surprise there is a strong union presence on the Bergen County Democratic Committee – a presence loyal to the chair.

One man said before voting began that he was backing Murphy because he trusted Juliano’s judgment.

A few hours later, another voter told a reporter just about the same thing.

Clearly, in this setting, loyalty topped concerns about nepotism.

That has not been the case elsewhere. Democratic committee members in such places as Hunterdon and Monmouth counties – places where Kim won endorsements – tend to be more philosophically liberal and idealistic. These are folks who do care about nepotism.

There are more conventions to come – and then there is the primary itself on June 4. So you can expect this cultural divide, if you will, to unfold over the next three months.

In short, more liberal committee members seem more likely to go with Kim, the guy challenging the party establishment. And, naturally, these sentiments can spill over into the primary as well.

In the wake of the Bergen convention comes a Monmouth University poll that is not, necessarily, awful news for Murphy, but it is good news for Kim.

As is to be expected with the First Lady – as opposed to one of 12 House members – the poll found Murphy with higher name recognition than Kim.

“About 8 in 10 New Jersey voters have heard of Murphy and just under 2 in 3 have heard of Kim,” the poll found.

However, Kim’s “favorable” rating in the poll among Democratic voters (the only cohort that counts at the moment)  was 48 percent and his “unfavorable” rating was just 2 percent – a 46 point spread in his favor.

On the other hand, Murphy’s favorable rating among Dems was 24 percent and her unfavorable,13 percent – a modest 11 point spread in her favor.

As stated previously, the take here is not that people specifically dislike Tammy Murphy. What poll respondents may dislike is Phil Murphy trying to make his wife a U.S. senator.

This poll also found that many people in the poll either don’t know who the candidates are, or have no opinion about them.

Patrick Murray, the poll director, notes:

“Kim has more of a public record than Murphy and it shows in this early read of voter sentiment, but what this poll really tells us is that the senate race is still an insider’s game at this point.”

Indeed.

But as we are seeing, not all insiders are the same.