Kennedy Campaign Memo: State Of The Race
To: Interested Parties
From: Josh Roesch, Campaign Manager, Amy Kennedy for Congress
Re: State of the NJ-2 race
Date: March 10, 2020
It’s been a whirlwind of a week in the race to replace party-switcher Rep. Jeff Van Drew for the Democratic nomination in New Jersey’s 2nd congressional district. This week, Amy Kennedy has confidently grabbed the front-runner mantel, while opponent Brigid Harrison is reeling from a series of losses and damaging revelations.
The fundamentals of this race have shifted: When Amy launched her bid on January 6th, Harrison was seen as a prohibitive front-runner. That’s simply no longer the case.
Some important moments of the past week:
1) New polling shows the race as largely undecided, but with Amy Kennedy positioned best to win the Democratic nomination. On Sunday, the New Jersey Working Families Party released polling conducted Feb 29- March 5 by ALG Research, which found Kennedy leading Harrison by 21-8. Candidate Ashley Bennett, who has since dropped out of the race, garnered 4%, while former Cory Booker staffer Will Cunningham secured 6%. Amy also scored highest in name recognition and in favorability among the candidates.
2) On Sunday, Kennedy captured the all-important Atlantic County Democratic Party endorsement. Atlantic County is the largest county in the 2nd district, comprising more than 40 percent of the vote total in 2016. Harrison was widely expected to win this endorsement; instead, Kennedy captured more than 60% of the vote. Winning the Atlantic County “line” confers a prime ballot placement for Kennedy in the county, and has historically been an important indicator of strength to win the party’s nomination.
3) Kennedy also earned the endorsement of the New Jersey State Council of the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO (CWA).
4) Harrison, meanwhile, struggled to explain critical questions about her ties to the district. A front-page Philadelphia Inquirer story Saturday delved into the topic, noting that while Harrison owns property in the beach community of Longport, NJ, prior to her bid for Congress, she likely split her time between the $1.7 million Manhattan apartment she owns with her husband, and her job at Montclair State University in northern New Jersey.
Two months after Amy Kennedy launched her campaign against the headwinds of the South Jersey political machine, she has flipped the narrative and established herself as the clear front runner with momentum in the Democratic Primary race, and the best candidate to take on Van Drew in the general election.
