Sources close to LD27 says the joint Democratic Committee will swap out Alixon Collazos Gill and replace her with her husband Brendan Gill.

Assemblyman John McKeon will get backing for the senate seat vacated by Richard Codey.

It was fluid all day, and yesterday, with Gill at one point leaving open the possibility of a senate run.

Democrats got scared, sensing intensified war drums.

Gill’s critics groaned about the Gills playing cynical musical chairs with the assembly seat.

But it’s a Democratic district, and Gill’s allies trusted that they wouldn’t suffer any off-the-line backlash, or that anyone would even remember next time.

Look what just happened to sitting Senator Nia Gill when she tried to run off the line.

Codey sleepwalked to victory.

This was a strongarm maneuver by Gill maybe, but one that simultaneously required the deftest touch.

Phil Murphy apparently stayed out of it, taking a phone call that evidently went nowhere.

The governor gave his blessing to a Gill run but didn’t lend a heavy thumb to the scale.

As soon as the Essex and Passaic players came to an agreement, the chances of other males for an assembly seat (Spango, Klein) became imperiled. The party hit the eject button on Assemblyman Tom Giblin earlier this year to avoid a slate of three white males. Collazos gone and her husband Gill installed, the committee sprang into gendering balancing mode.

This all came about in the aftermath of Codey’s Monday announcement, when McKeon asked for a meeting to square things up.

Gill didn’t actually present vote totals that showed him able to muscle McKeon, just interest, mostly in replacing his wife on the ticket. She deferred to him, he said he wanted the seat, and in exchange for joining forces with McKeon, the party backed him – and McKeon. That left the second assembly seat to get done, with those pressing the case for a woman galvanized.

More to come.