murphy

Phil Murphy, a Democrat, is a former ambassador to Germany and Goldman Sachs executive who's considering running for New Jersey governor

(file photo)

Phil Murphy, the wealthy former ambassador to Germany who's eyeing a run for New Jersey governor, bankrolled a sophisticated voter targeting operation that helped Democratic Bergen County Freeholder Jim Tedesco defeat Republican Bergen County Executive Kathe Donovan to become the top official in New Jersey's most populous county.



Through a $24,000 in-kind contribution to the Bergen County Democratic Committee, Murphy paid for Tom Bonier, co-founder of Clarity Campaign Labs, to build a model to target potential Tedesco voters.



The data allowed Democrats to search out registered Democrats or unaffiliated voters who tended to vote Democratic, but who didn't know much about Tedesco. Democrats then targeted them with advertisements and door knocking.



"It allows us to identify people who had a very high party score but a low Tedesco score as the people they really needed to focus on in terms of their direct voter participation," said Bonier.



That help was on top of the $5,200 Murphy and his wife Tammy gave to Tedesco's campaign.



Murphy wasn't the only potential Democratic candidate for governor to lend a hand to Tedesco. Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop both gave substantial sums, and had allies contribute as well.

"Sweeney, Fulop and Murphy , there was help across the board from those guys," said Tedesco campaign consultant Adam Silverstein.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), another potential governor candidate, gave big to Bergen Dems as well.



But that wasn't the only thing Murphy — a former Goldman Sachs executive and prolific national Democratic donor who began making the New Jersey rounds earlier this year — spent on campaign season.



The Auditor found that Murphy,, a former finance chair of the Democratic National Committee, gave $25,000 each to the Middlesex, Mercer, Union and Passaic County Democratic parties. Monmouth and Morris County got $5,000 and Burlington County Democrats got $2,500.



Murphy and his wife also gave $23,400 to the joint candidate committee of the Essex County Democratic freeholder candidates.



"As they did when Phil and Howard Dean were building the 50-state strategy nationally, Phil and Tammy Murphy are investing in counties and candidates that have demonstrated that they are building from the ground up, regardless of how blue or red they are," said Julie Roginsky, a political consultant who's working with Murphy. "Their first priority is to ensure that, win or lose, these counties will have the resources to keep the momentum they have developed this cycle going after November 5th."