In a Democratic Party defined late in the season by its myriad rivalries, Democratic State Party Vice Chair Lizette Delgado-Polanco occupies a unique position, one that puts her in a good political spot to succeed sitting Democratic State Party Chairman John Currie.

Amid all the squabbling, Delgado-Polanco and Currie last month clung together at a state party podium in Atlantic City, desperately projecting unity. But there are some obvious larger dividing lines, epitomized in part this week by the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters’ PAC going in big with Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) where the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) occupies the opposing side.

Sweeney and Currie are warring, the senate president’s irritation with the state party chairman extending beyond just Curie’s early endorsement of Phil Murphy for Governor, which stopped Sweeney’s own gubernatorial march in its tracks, but to what Sweeney allies decry as Currie’s refusal to muzzle the NJEA’s ongoing multimillion dollar effort to depose the sitting senate president.

Currie was bothered by Sweeney’s decision to punish him by delaying the swearing-in ceremony of Senator Kristin Corrado, which clogged the clerkship Currie wants, requiring him to wait another year before he runs for the countywide constitutional office. Sweeney nemesis Speaker Vincent Prieto has upped the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee’s effort in LD40, not to beat Corrado necessarily (a heavy lift, given the GOP dimensions of the district), but to irritate her and her running mates – as payback for the way Sweeney and Corrado irritated Currie.

While all that’s going on, and while Sweeney seethes over Currie’s inability to stop the NJEA and stop enabling the public unions-affiliated counterweight of Prieto, the Carpenters gave $756,000 to Sweeney.

Who’s the political director for the Carpenters?

Delgado-Polanco.

Straddling both the Currie and Sweeney worlds, with her SEIU 32BJ roots intact up north and now enhanced by labor organizational strength with the Building Trades, the sitting vice chair of the party is said to want to succeed Currie as state party chair. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy’s tight with Currie and said to support him if Currie wants another crack at the chairmanship.

But such considerable division in the party may prove problematic for Currie, sources say, especially if Murphy doesn’t exact a resounding victory on Nov. 7th. Anything less than a double digit win for a candidate who was once up by solid double digits over Republican Kim Guadagno with the noose of Chris Christie around her neck would have to be seen as less than impressive.

A win by less than five points would be embarrassing to Murphy, multiple sources from all regional corners of the state agree.

As a Latina against the backdrop of all-white male legislative leadership if Prieto does indeed go down and Assemblyman Craig Coughlin prevails, and if Sweeney wins a tough reelection bid, Delgado-Polanco has a good case to make, at the very least, in the name of diversity, especially if Sweeney and South Jersey, unwilling to forgive Currie, look to displace him.

The fact that the vice chair in her carpenters capacity threw in with Sweeney in his hour of need doesn’t hurt that case. Through it all, she has also proved a loyal second banana to Currie.

But of course, Sweeney has to win first, and arguably win convincingly himself, and presumably Murphy – even hobbled by a less than concussive gubernatorial win – would have to weigh in on the subject.