Bernie Sanders

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, July 6, 2015, in Portland, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty | AP)

TRENTON — New Jersey's most powerful Democrats are already firmly behind Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

But there is a small and active group of progressive Democrats in the state backing her most prominent Democratic rival, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. And one them is suggesting taking it much further than just endorsing him.

Bertin Lefkovic — a liberal activist who helped lead Howard Dean's 2004 Democratic primary campaign in New Jersey — started a "New Jersey for Bernie Sanders 2016" Facebook page that has so far attracted more than 1,000 "likes."

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On the page, Lefkovic — who stresses that he has no role in the Sanders campaign, though he would take one if offered — suggested that Democrats backing Sanders mobilize to run for other offices on the same slate as him.

"We need many more at every level from party offices like committee person to town council to mayor to freeholder to congressperson," Lefkovic recently wrote. "Bernie Sanders was not being hyperbolic when he called for a political revolution and there is no state that needs one more than New Jersey, especially with the way that our state's Democratic establishment has operated in cahoots with Chris Christie to empower themselves and pass his agenda so that he could run for President the way that he is doing today."

The Sanders campaign has no official representatives in New Jersey. Aside from its campaign headquarters in Vermont, it has offices only in New Hampshire and Vermont.

As of right now, Lefkovic said, "we're not an organization with any kind of collective decision-making process."

"What I post on that page is my opinion of how we should proceed. And by we I meant the royal we — it's not speaking for other people," Lefkovic said in a phone interview," he said.

New Jersey's primary typically isn't even an afterthought among presidential candidates. By the time the state's presidential primary comes around in the late spring, most races have already been settled. And New Jersey's Democratic party bosses and top fundraisers have practically tripped over themselves to endorse and raise money for Clinton.

But Lefkovic — who said New Jerseyans will host several organizational meetings around the state that have been encouraged by the national campaign on July 29 — expects Sanders to run a different kind of campaign.

"I believe he's serious about this being not just a campaign, but a political revolution. And the way you do that is to campaign in every state, regardless of what happened in other states," he said.

Already, one candidate has aligned himself with Sanders: Alex Law, a 24-year-old former IBM strategy consultant planning to run against U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st Dist.), whose brother George is the most powerful Democratic power broker in the state.

"I think Hillary's a great candidate. One of the biggest issues for me, though, is campaign finance reform," Law said. "I think that's key to addressing a lot of other issues, and I don't have a lot of confidence that Hillary is going to do anything to change the Citizens United ruling from 2010, but I do believe Bernie will. I think Bernie has done a great job of talking about progressive issues first, and Hillary has come on board with them, which is great."

Indeed, Sanders — who in the Senate is an independent but caucuses with Democrats — proudly embraces the "democratic socialist" label. His campaign has focused on income inequality, campaign finance, climate change and increasing the minimum wage. Clinton has embraced many of those planks, but Sanders has taken particular aim at Wall Street. Clinton counts finance moguls among her biggest supporters.

And while Sanders' candidacy is still widely discounted, he's been attracting large crowds in the early contest states and is registering in the polls. A Monmouth University poll released Wednesday showed Clinton's support among Democrats dropping from 60 percent in April to 51 percent, while Sanders' support has grown to 17 percent from 7 percent in April. Two other declared Democrats — former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley — got just 1 percent support each.

Law knows he's seen as the most long of long shots, but said he wouldn't have left his job to run full-time if he wasn't serious about his candidacy.

"Look at George Norcross and his empire," he said. "Yes they're very powerful, but we don't need to do a lot of voter information. Most people in this district already have some kind of negative connotation with the Norcross name."

Photos: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 22 Gallery: Photos: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

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Matt Friedman may be reached at mfriedman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattFriedmanSL. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.