Tammy Murphy, New Jersey’s first lady, received crucial support in her bid for the U.S. Senate on Monday evening, winning the vote at the Democratic Convention in Bergen County by a decisive margin.

It was Ms. Murphy’s first win at a convention decided by secret ballot delegates, and it was considered a must-win contest in her primary battle against Representative Andy Kim, a third-term Democrat from South Jersey.

The votes were 738 for Ms. Murphy and 419 for Mr. Kim.

Over the past month, Mr. Kim, 41, won the first five county conventions in New Jersey where delegates could select a candidate, including in Monmouth County, where Ms. Murphy and her husband, Gov. Philip D. Murphy, have lived for 25 years.

With the support of Mr. Murphy, who has nearly two years left in his term, Ms. Murphy, 58, collected early endorsements from a string of influential Democratic officials before she hit the campaign trail.

But she has been battered by claims of nepotism and is struggling to gain support among rank-and-file Democrats as she makes her case that she should be their nominee to run for a coveted seat now held by Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat accused of taking bribes. Mr. Menendez has not ruled out running for re-election, but he has been abandoned by most Democratic leaders and has virtually no path to victory.

Bergen County, in northern New Jersey, is the state’s most populous region. It has more Democrats than any other county than Essex, which includes Newark, the largest city in the state.

“It’s going as I hoped,” Ms. Murphy told reporters after being declared the winner on Monday. “Of course it is great to achieve this incredible victory.”

Starting at 5 p.m., deputies began putting paper ballots into locked silver-and-red boxes on tables surrounding a union hall in Paramus, NJ. The room remained packed for most of the evening as people walked around chatting with friends while waiting for the election. votes to be counted by hand at 7:30 p.m. Many people wore embroidered patches or clothing that indicated they were union members or worked for local public safety departments.

Supporters of both Ms. Murphy and Mr. Kim said they had no memory of a convention that had attracted more interest from the news media — or from the candidates.

“Calls, mail, texts,” said Rob Rohrberger, 64, of Glen Rock, describing the barrage of political messages sent by candidates.

Ms. Murphy helped run Mr. Murphy’s two campaigns for governor, but she has never run for office before. She was a registered Republican until 2014, when Murphy prepared to run for governor.

Mrs. Murphy, a mother of four adult children, worked as a financial analyst for several years after graduating from college, but she has not worked outside the home since she married Mr. Murphy 30 years ago. Since then, she has served on several philanthropic boards and, as first lady, has been an advocate for improving maternal and infant mortality rates.

Bergen County Democratic Chairman Paul A. Juliano, a former public works director in Fairview, was appointed by Mr. Murphy last March to a $280,000-a-year state job as CEO of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. He endorsed Ms. Murphy shortly after she entered the race in November and has actively campaigned for her.

Elizabeth Heap, a longtime member of the Bergen County Democratic Committee, said she voted for Ms. Murphy.

“It’s time for New Jersey to have a woman in the Senate,” Ms. Heap, 74, said as she left the union hall.

Mr. Rohrberger said he had received personal calls from both candidates but had decided to vote for Mr. Kim, a former national security adviser who advised generals during the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Kim flipped a seat from a Republican to be elected to Congress in 2018, and has been re-elected twice.

For Mr. Rohrberger, it was Mr. Kim’s experience that made the difference.

Ms. Murphy has also been selected as a nominee in Passaic and Union Counties. However, those decisions were made by a handful of party leaders in closed-door meetings.

Last week, Mr. Kim filed a federal lawsuit that took direct aim at the backroom party politics that support the state’s longstanding practice of allowing district leaders — whether Democrat or Republican — to nominate preferred candidates for place all races in a single row or column. ballots. It is known as ‘the line’ and is unique to New Jersey. Unendorsed candidates appear to the side, in a nearby row, or at the edge of the ballot, a location commonly referred to as “ballot Siberia.”

a recent research by a professor at Rutgers University showed that placement on the so-called line of candidates for Congress gave a lead of 38 percentage points.

Mr. Kim has asked a federal judge, Zahid N. Quraishi, to overturn the practice and instead require candidates to be grouped by the office they seek. Judge Quraishi did expects to hold a hearing on the matter on March 18, a week before the deadline for candidates to file petitions for nomination.

Ms. Murphy has lagged behind Mr. Kim in several surveys, including the first independent poll of the race, and her campaign manager resigned last month, signaling a possible change in strategy.

Since then, she has released her first television commercial, filmed in front of the National Rifle Association’s headquarters in Virginia, and announced the endorsement of Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont. She held a fundraiser in Massachusetts last week with the state’s governor, Maura Healey; On Wednesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul is expected to host a fundraiser for Ms. Murphy, with suggested donations ranging from $3,300 to $6,600.

Tammy Murphy, New Jersey’s first lady who is running for the U.S. Senate, has lagged behind her top Democratic primary opponent, Rep. Andy Kim, in polls and in the race for momentum among rank-and-file voters.

On Thursday, in a sign of a changing strategy, she said goodbye to her campaign manager Max Glass. There is no immediate replacement, aides said.

“We are extremely grateful for the value and passion Max has brought to our team and his efforts to keep this campaign going,” said campaign spokeswoman Alex Altman.

Mrs. Murphy, the wife of New Jersey Governor Philip D. Murphy, began her campaign in November for the seat now occupied by the state’s embattled senior senator, Robert Menendez. Mr Menendez, who is accused of taking bribes in exchange for political favors, has not ruled out running for re-election.

With the governor’s support, Ms. Murphy quickly gathered support from many of the Democratic Party’s most influential leaders.

But a poll released this month showed Ms. Murphy, a first-time candidate with limited experience, trailing Mr. Kim, a third-term congressman from South Jersey, 32 percent to 20 percent among Democrats voters. A week later, Ms. Murphy, 58, lost the Democratic convention by a wide margin in Monmouth County, where she has lived for 25 years.

Ms. Altman described Mr. Glass’s departure as a transition and said the campaign remained confident there was a “clear path to winning the primary.”

Mr Glass said he had no comment.

Mr. Glass, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist, is married to Mollie Binotto, who managed Mr. Murphy’s 2021 re-election campaign for governor.

In 2022, Mr. Glass led the re-election campaign of Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. He also has run national campaigns in Kansas, Michigan and North Carolina, according to his LinkedIn account.

Saily Avelenda, who until a few weeks ago was director of the Democratic State Committee, has joined the Murphy campaign as an adviser, Ms. Altman said.

Two other Democrats, Larry Hamm, a left-wing activist who has served on the Newark school board, and Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor leader, are also vying for the Democratic nomination in the June 4 primary.

Mr. Kim’s spokesman said he had no comment on the Murphy campaign’s personnel change.

Dana Rubinstein reporting contributed.

Eric Hovde, a Wisconsin businessman, announced his campaign Tuesday for the Senate seat of Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, giving Republicans a prominent candidate in the state after two sitting members of Congress declined to run.

“Do you feel like America is slipping away?” said Mr Hovde in his announcement video. “Our country faces enormous challenges. Our economy, our health care, crime and open borders – everything is going in the wrong direction. All Washington does is divide us and talk about who is to blame, and nothing happens.”

“I believe we must come together and find common sense solutions to fix America,” he added in the video, which did not mention Ms. Baldwin, other Democrats or Republicans.

Mr. Hovde, the multimillionaire founder of H Bancorp LLC and the CEO of a real estate development company, is the highest-profile candidate so far to enter the Republican race. He ran for Senate once before, losing the Republican primary in 2012, and considered running for Senate in 2018 and governor in 2022, but decided against it.

Wisconsin is in the Republican second tier this year as the party tries to gain control of the Senate. It is a closely divided state where Donald J. Trump won in 2016, but Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in 2020 – and where a Democratic governor won re-election in 2022 – and it poses a bigger challenge to Republicans than the red states of the United States. Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. But it will probably be competitive.

Ms. Baldwin quickly used news of Mr. Hovde's arrival to solicit donations for the campaign. post on social media that this “will be my most competitive and expensive race yet.” A spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin said in a statement that Mr. Hovde would “put ultra-rich people like him above Wisconsin's middle class” and vote to ban abortion, cut Social Security benefits and repeal Affordable Care Act.

Both responses also touch on a point that Democrats are likely to hammer home in the coming months: Mr. Hovde owns real estate and has lived on and off in California.

Representatives Mike Gallagher and Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, Republicans seen as potential recruits, said last year they would not challenge Ms. Baldwin.

New Jersey's College Democrats were preparing to endorse one of the most closely watched U.S. Senate primaries when calls came in from someone in contact with the campaign of Tammy Murphy, the presumptive front-runner and the wife of the president. governor of the state.

The caller, a female student who works as a youth coordinator for the Democratic State Committee, wanted to know what Ms. Murphy's campaign could do to stop the group from supporting Ms. Murphy's main rival, Rep. Andy Kim.

“Would a call from Tammy help?” the woman asked, indicating she was passing on a message from the Murphy campaign.

Then, in a series of calls over the next two hours, pressure from the caller, Keely Magee, escalated to warnings — about funding and future job prospects for leaders of the College Democrats, according to several people involved in the discussions and a recording of one call .

In an interview, Ms. Magee said the Murphy campaign had not asked her to pressure the group on her behalf. But she acknowledged that she was aware that members of Ms. Murphy's campaign staff “wanted to do something to prevent the endorsement,” and said she received text messages from Murphy campaign consultant Dave Parano.

During the recorded conversation, Ms. Magee described Mr. Parano as a colleague who had spoken “directly” to the campaign manager and had “very, very close ties to the Murphys.” Mr. Parano did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The attempt to block the approval failed. On Wednesday, both the College Democrats of America and the New Jersey chapter published full-throated expressions of support from Mr. Kim, a South Jersey Democrat who is running against Ms. Murphy for the chance to unseat Sen. Bob Menendez.

The episode offered a rare behind-the-scenes look at the high-stakes political battle unfolding as New Jersey's first lady, a first-time candidate, struggles to gain traction with the base in her bid to oust Mr. Menendez. faces federal bribery charges.

With the support of her husband, Governor Philip D. Murphy, a second-term Democrat, Mrs. Murphy has won the backing of many of the state's most powerful Democrats and has raised a record amount of contributions in the first six weeks of her campaign fetched. Still, several polls suggest she continues to trail Mr. Kim by a wide margin.

Alex Altman, a spokeswoman for Ms. Murphy's campaign, said Ms. Magee's comments were “totally and completely inappropriate, and in no way represent this campaign or what we stand for.”

“They were created by a young person with no connection to our campaign, someone who was eager to help, albeit in a misguided way,” Ms. Altman added.

Ms. Magee, a 21-year-old junior at Rutgers University, has worked part-time for several years as a paid youth coordinator for the Democratic State Committee.

Ms Magee said her main aim had been to convince members of the organisation College Democrats board of directors to halt an ongoing online approval vote and instead remain neutral. She said she believed statewide Democratic organizations should not take sides before a primary, and worried that a group she was responsible for guiding could face repercussions if it did so.

“It didn't come from a threatening situation at all,” she said.

But students on the other end of the line said they felt threatened, so much so that they recorded the last conversation to have proof of the exchange if they were to be punished later. The students then presented Mr.'s campaign. Kim accessed the recording, which was also shared with The New York Times.

“I felt a mix of shock and fear,” said Nate Howard, 20, a junior at Princeton University who is vice president of the New Jersey chapter of the College Democrats and participated in the phone call with Ms. Magee that was recorded. “Shock because: why are these people threatening us? Are we really that important?”

According to the recording, Ms. Magee warned the students that an early endorsement from Mr. Kim could harm their future job prospects, deprive their organization of as much as $2,000 in funding and jeopardize their chances of serving as delegates to the Democratic National Convention. being selected could cause harm. in Chicago.

“If Tammy Murphy somehow wins the senatorship, I would be cautious if I ever get a job in that office or anything like that,” Ms. Magee said. “At least for the first few years of her term, until her staff changes.”

Mr Howard said Ms Murphy called him on Friday to apologize. Ms Magee said Mr Parano, a political consultant who also works for the state commission, had also apologized to her for involving her in the process in the first place.

Ms. Murphy's campaign said all students involved in this “unfortunate situation” should be given the “grace, allowance and forgiveness we all deserve at that age.”

In the 2020 elections 67 percent of New Jersey voters Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 are the highest in the country.

A spokeswoman for the Kim campaign said she was enthusiastic about the messages of support from the university groups, but had no comment on the recording.

Mr Howard said the experience has underlined what he believes is wrong with politics.

“For things to get better,” Mr. Howard said, “I believe it will take courageous people to tell the truth about the inappropriate and downright egregious behavior of the status quo.”