New Jersey politics, often raw, are bananas this year

The first lady of New Jersey is running for the US Senate. A former governor who resigned in disgrace is attempting to make a political comeback as mayor. Two members of Congress and a half-dozen other political luminaries are preparing to campaign for governor.

The senior US senator and his wife are accused of taking bribes. A trial in federal court will begin shortly before the June primary. That has forced the senator's son, a first-term member of Congress, to fight harder to keep his seat.

Campaign cycles in New Jersey tend to be raw and long. They are also often entertaining. But the number of high-profile political fights shaping up this year, combined with a slate of atypical candidates running for office under extraordinary circumstances, has set an early, breathtaking pace.

“It's really one of those cases where you need to have a scorecard handy to keep track of who's coming in and out and who's trying to accomplish what,” said Patrick Murray, director of polling at Monmouth University.

Francis J. Giantomasi, an influential Democratic attorney whose office works for New Jersey candidates in both political parties, said the current cycle was unlike anything he had ever seen.

“The number of viable candidates and the number of contested races is, in my opinion — and I've been doing this for 45 years — at an all-time high,” he said.

On Saturday, Jon Bramnick, a senator, lawyer and stand-up comedian, added to the hope, becoming the first Republican to enter his party's primary for governor, a contest that spans more than a year and a half.

“It's giving me palpitations,” Ashley Koning, director of the Rutgers University polling firm, said of the early intensity. “I feel like we're putting everything in a blender and it's going to get out of hand.”

Mr. Bramnick is an unapologetic critic of former President Donald J. Trump, and his candidacy will be the first real test of whether New Jersey Republicans can recapture their historically centrist groove, or whether the right wing will embrace the state party's agenda will continue to dominate.

“I'm not going to try to thread the needle,” Bramnick, 70, said of potentially alienating Trump's supporters in the primaries. “I don't think people want that. They want authenticity.”

Explanations for New Jersey's overheated campaign atmosphere extend beyond the corruption scandal now engulfing the former dean of state Democrats, Sen. Robert Menendez, who was accused last fall of accepting cash and gold in exchange for political favors.

The trend of candidates entering races earlier has lengthened the cycle of each campaign in recent years. And starting in the 2023 general election, looser pay-to-play rules and an increase in campaign finance limits have allowed candidates to ask more people for more money.

“Candidates are more likely to come forward, and donors are more likely to take action,” said Rebecca Moll Freed, a Newark-based partner at an international law firm that has advised individual and corporate clients on political donation limits for decades.

“It's the craziest thing I've ever seen,” she added.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, is barred from running again because of term limits, and the election to choose his successor isn't until November 2025.

But two Democrats have already announced their intention to run for governor: Steven Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City; and Stephen Sweeney, the former Senate president. Other Democrats expected to enter the race include Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

Mr. Bramnick will most likely face several primary opponents, including Jack Ciatarelli, who came within three percentage points of defeating Mr. Murphy in 2021.

Mr. Ciatarelli, a former state lawmaker, said he was looking forward to a contentious race. “Competition makes us better,” he said.

While there are practical challenges when large groups of big-name candidates compete for finite resources – media attention, contributions and ultimately advertising space – some political strategists also see an advantage.

Rob Horowitz is helping run Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla's campaign against Rep. Rob Menendez Jr., Sen. Menendez's son.

“The sheer number of competitive primaries and competitive races, which will increase turnout, makes it a good environment to be a challenger,” Mr. Horowitz said.

The US Senate race already has four announced Democratic candidates. Representative Andy Kim, who is serving his third term in Congress, came in first, the day after Senator Menendez was indicted. Larry Hamm, a well-known Newark activist, entered the race the next day, followed by Tammy Murphy, the first lady, and Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor leader.

Republican Mendham Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner has announced her intention to run for Senate and will likely face several primary opponents, including Alex Zdan, a former television news reporterAnd Curtis Bashawa hotel chain owner from Cape May.

Waiting in the wings is Mr. Menendez, who has not ruled out seeking re-election despite being abandoned by most of the state's Democratic leaders.

“All options are on the table,” Menendez said through a spokeswoman on Friday. “When the time comes, I will let the people of New Jersey know.”

However, his opinion polls are dismal. A Rutgers poll released this week found that only 9 percent of respondents viewed Mr. Menendez favorably. (The survey was conducted in December, before the senator began publicly opposing the charges he faced.)

“We're all assuming that Menendez is not active — and we don't know for sure,” said Mr. Murray of Monmouth University. “And that's another layer on top of all of this.”

The Senate race may not even be the most unusual contest in the state. A former governor, Jim McGreevey, who left politics in 2004 after announcing he was a “gay American” and having an affair with a man on his staff, is now hoping to be elected mayor of Jersey City.

The resulting cacophony leaves candidates scrambling to be heard.

Early Wednesday, Mr. Fulop posted one wire on Xthe social media platform formerly known as Twitter that broke the big news of the day hours before it was announced: New Jersey Transit would increase bus and rail fares by 15 percent.

“Frankly, it's frustrating and this kind of politics makes it difficult for me to be positive about the Murphy administration,” Mr. Fulop wrote.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Gottheimer's office — under a bold, all-caps abbreviation for “in case you missed it” — emailed reporters a letter he had written to a New Jersey news station that was implicitly critical of the policy of Mr. Murphy. The letter had been published two weeks earlier.

Ms. Murphy also stepped up her rhetoric on Wednesday after Tom Malinowski, a former two-term Democratic congressman, endorsed Mr. Kim, her main opponent in the Senate. In a press releaseShe called Mr. Malinowski a whiny loser who, she said, lost his last re-election campaign because he failed to promptly report stock transactions, an omission that resulted in a fine.

Ms. Murphy, a wealthy first-time candidate, said members of Congress should not be allowed to trade stocks. (She made no mention of the state's redrawn congressional map, negotiated by her husband's allies and which increased the difficulty of Mr. Malinowski's reelection bid.)

Mr. Bramnick used humor and household names in his run for governor.

George P. Bush, a son of Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, endorsed Mr. Bramnick in a video (in Spanish and English), as well as John A. Boehnera former Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The announcement was accompanied by a video in which four men played poker and sparked an ongoing rivalry over the name of a popular New Jersey breakfast meat.

“He calls it Taylor ham, not pork roll,” one of the men says of Mr. Bramnick. “He has it all.”

He started his campaign at the Stress Factory, a comedy club in New Brunswick.

Karen J. Kessler, a public relations executive in New Jersey who specializes in crisis communications, predicted that the campaign season would only become “more intense.”

“It's just the beginning of a hectic situation,” she said.