Dustin Racioppi

State House Bureau, @dracioppi

The county nominating conventions are nearly complete and the order of each primary ballot set. Now the front-runners are under attack.

The candidates who earn a county organization's endorsement, with a few exceptions, get the coveted "county line" — appearing on the ballot along with other endorsed candidates. It has traditionally been a key to victory for candidates seeking to make it to the general election.

Here is an update on endorsements and other happenings in the 2017 governor's race:

Who's running?

DEMOCRATS: Paul Binetti, Bill Brennan, Monica Brinson, Jim Johnson, Ray Lesniak, Phil Murphy, Titus Pierce, John Wisniewski, Mark Zinna.

REPUBLICANS: Jack Ciattarelli, Kim Guadagno, Steven Rogers, Joseph Rullo, Hirsh Singh

INDEPENDENTS (no primary): Seth Kaper-Dale, Gina Genovese Jon Lancelot, Mike Price, Peter Rohrman (an article last week incorrectly listed his running mate for lieutenant governor, Karese Laguerre), Vincent Ross.

Money

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno has officially qualified for the state's matching funds program, which gives candidates $2 for every $1 they raise. The Election Law Enforcement Commission said last Monday that it disbursed $830,818 to Guadagno's campaign.

The campaign of Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, R-Somerset, said Tuesday that it "has raised well over" the $430,000 threshold to qualify for matching funds. Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, has also said it has submitted $450,000 in donations to qualify for matching funds. The election commission must review all donations.

The commission has disbursed $122,926 to Jim Johnson, a Democrat from Montclair. He has received a total of $875,474 so far, the commission said.

Qualifying for matching funds is a significant hurdle in the primary, not only because of the two-to-one match, but because it gets candidates on the primary debate stage. The election commission requires that those who receive matching funds must participate in two debates for each election. On Tuesday, the commission selected NJTV/NJ Spotlight and the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University as the moderators of the primary debates, which must occur between April 13 and May 23.

Phil Murphy, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany running for the Democratic Party nomination, is forgoing the public-financing program. He's pledged $10 million to his campaign while also raising money. He plans to participate in the debates.

Endorsements

Murphy is one endorsement away from a statewide sweep. He has secured the endorsements of 20 of New Jersey's 21 counties, and was expected to get the endorsement of Cape May's organization over the weekend. The endorsements mean Murphy will appear on the county line, a major advantage over his opponents.

Murphy's challengers are trying to turn what is historically a crucial springboard to primary victory to their advantage, positioning themselves as candidates bypassing the party machine and going directly to voters. But it is a formidable challenge they face. No known governor in modern history has been elected without any county lines. The last candidate to come close to being elected — and it wasn't very close — without a county committee endorsement was W. Michael Murphy, a former Morris County prosecutor (with no relation to Phil). He earned 21 percent of the vote in the 1997 primary, finishing third. Wisniewski has enlisted Murphy's former campaign manager, Robert Becker, to lead his 2017 bid.

County party endorsements are more varied on the Republican side, but Guadagno has the majority. She's secured the county line or "slogan" in 14 counties: Atlantic, Bergen, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Hudson, Monmouth, Ocean and Passaic; Morris, Salem, Sussex and Warren don't award preferential placement on the primary ballot.

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Ciattarelli is giving Guadagno a strong challenge considering he is a mostly unknown lawmaker up against the state's lieutenant governor. He's won county party endorsements in Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Somerset and Union.

But Guadagno has the support of the four mostly Republican counties: Bergen, Monmouth, Morris and Ocean. Those four alone give her a significant advantage, with 488,274 registered Republicans — about 100,000 more than registered Republicans in the seven counties backing Ciattarelli. But Chris Russell, Ciattarelli's campaign strategist, said in a memo Thursday that adding the seven counties Ciattarelli has won to the four counties that don't award preferential ballot placement equals nearly 51 percent of the primary vote share.

Russell acknowledged that Guadagno deserves her status as the front-runner, but with the Republican conventions now complete, he argues that there is a tighter race than expected.

"Assemblyman Ciattarelli’s strong performance during the conventions clearly beat expectations and has transformed this race from what many believed to be a coronation into a competitive campaign," Russell said in the memo.

Front-runners in the cross hairs

Now that all but one county convention is complete, the primary has entered a new phase, in which challengers sharpen their attacks on the party front-runners.

In Russell's memo, in which he refers to Guadagno as "Silent Kim" for not responding to calls for debates, he makes the case that Guadagno's nomination would be a liability for the Republican Party. He said Guadagno's support has eroded, she trails with female and independent voters in a recent Quinnipiac University poll and she lacks substance and details in her policy proposals.

Russell said Guadagno has a "significant weakness" against Murphy in a general election matchup, and claimed that the party's "greatest fear" is that the race is not winnable if she is the nominee.

"That lack in partisan intensity would greatly increase the risk of down-ballot losses at all levels. We, as a party, can capitalize on the negative optics of Murphy being Corzine 2.0," Russell wrote, referring to the last Democratic governor, Jon Corzine. Referring then to Gov. Chris Christie, he added, "but not if our standard-bearer is viewed as an unpopular governor’s third-term."

Ricky Diaz, a spokesman for Guadagno's campaign, responded to Russell's memo Friday by pointing out that Guadagno still leads in the areas that have been crucial for victory.

"It takes a some serious political spin to make the case that polling in the single digits with two months until the primary is somehow exceeding expectations. But since Assemblyman Ciattarelli supported increasing the gas tax and is calling for higher income taxes in a Republican primary, I guess his consultants have to resort to desperate spin like that," Diaz said in an email. "The lieutenant governor is leading in polls, fundraising and endorsements because she is the candidate with a plan to make our state better and more affordable for working families.”

Murphy is under attack as well. Jim Johnson entered the fray on Thursday, alleging in a complaint filed with the Election Law Enforcement Commission that Murphy violated campaign finance laws by using two non-profits he established well before his formal campaign launch to avoid registering or disclosing contributions and expenditures "to support his governor's campaign." Wisniewski, who has spent much of his campaign going after Murphy has joined Johnson's call for an investigation.

"New Jersey desperately needs leadership who will change the way our state government does business, and by failing to be honest and transparent with voters about his candidacy, Phil Murphy’s campaign have shown they are committed to bringing more of the same," Johnson said in a statement.

Murphy's campaign responded by calling on Johnson to "come clean" about his role in a $10 million no-bid contract to represent New York City in a federal investigation into Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, then accepted a donation from the official who awarded his law firm the contract. "Jim Johnson is a walking conflict of interest," Murphy adviser Julie Roginsky said in a statement.

Governor 'Don't Know'

Not many people know who's running for governor, according to recent polls. But Murphy and Guadagno consistently lead in name recognition in those polls. The latest, from Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind Poll, found that 23 percent of registered Democrats would vote for Murphy in the primary if it were held today, and 24 percent of voters would choose Guadagno.

Murphy and Guadagno are far and away the most popular among the candidates running, but they aren't necessarily in the lead. The polls said that more than half the voters surveyed responded "don't know" when asked which nominee from each party they would be most likely to support if the vote were held today.

“With a little more than two months until the June 6 primary, Guadagno and Murphy look good among those with an opinion, but there’s still lots of room for others to capture the attention of voters who remain unimpressed with what they’ve seen so far,” Krista Jenkins, the poll's director, said in a statement.

Ad time

Murphy has been airing ads for months, but now other candidates, having raised some money, are beginning to make their pitches to the public.

Guadagno is seeking to distinguish herself from Christie for two reasons: She has spent seven years in his shadow, largely unknown to the public, and he is deeply unpopular with voters. In a digital ad, Guadagno does not name Christie but takes down his $300 million plan to renovate the State House, saying, "Trenton has lost sight of everything that's important in New Jersey."

Murphy's latest ad, airing on television and online, takes aim at President Donald Trump. Murphy, promising a progressive agenda if elected, says the president betrays Democratic values and promises that "the fight back starts here."