# New Jersey U.S. Senate 2026 ## Snapshot **Settled June 2: [[Cory Booker]] (unopposed) vs. [[Justin Murphy]]**, a Burlington County attorney and former Tabernacle deputy mayor who won a four-way Republican primary with 33.3% — a 4.1-point, 9,801-vote margin over state trooper Richard Tabor, with the pre-primary favorite Alex Zdan third. Booker is seeking a third full term with $22.6M in the bank against a challenger who reported **negative $24 cash on hand** in May. No public poll of the general exists; no Republican has won a New Jersey Senate race since 1972. The one scheduled event is an October 8 debate at Rider University. ## Incumbent - **[[Cory Booker]]** (D) — senator since October 2013 (special election after Lautenberg's death); Mayor of Newark 2006–2013; 2020 presidential candidate; holds the Senate floor-speech record (25 hours 5 minutes, April 2025). $32.3M raised, $22.6M cash on hand as of May 13. ## How the nomination was decided ### Democratic primary (June 2, 2026) - **Cory Booker** — unopposed. ### Republican primary (June 2, 2026) — 240,680 votes cast | Candidate | % | |---|---| | **Justin Murphy** | **33.3** | | Richard Tabor | 29.2 | | Alex Zdan | 26.8 | | Robert Lebovics | 10.6 | AP called it at 11:25 p.m. Zdan, the former News 12 reporter with Passaic County organization backing, had been treated as the strongest of the four; the win by Murphy, who finished third in the 2024 GOP Senate primary at 11.3%, is a measure of how little organization the state party brought to the contest. ## General election Booker vs. Murphy, plus **Veronica Fernandez** (End the Corruption!) and **Joanne Kuniansky** (Socialist Workers). Vote-by-mail ballots go out September 19; early voting October 24–November 1. **Debate: Thursday, October 8, 7 p.m., Rider University** — 60 minutes, sponsored by New Jersey Globe and Rider, moderated by David Wildstein and Micah Rasmussen, major-party candidates only, streamed on C-SPAN and [[YouTube]]. (Sponsor's own announcement; not yet independently confirmed.) No public poll of the general has been released. The only figure in circulation, a Pollsmax model showing Booker 59.6–40.5, is a forecast, not a survey. ## Ratings history - Cook Solid D (Apr 13) · Sabato Safe D (Mar 4) · Inside Elections Solid D (Apr 23). The prior "Likely D" on this page was an error; Cook has had it Solid D all cycle. ## Key dates - 2026-06-02 — primaries (held) - 2026-09-19 — VBM ballots mailed - 2026-10-08 — Booker–Murphy debate, Rider University - 2026-10-24 to 11-01 — early voting - 2026-11-03 — general election ## Intel notes - **The 2,000-to-1 money gap** ($22.6M vs. −$24) is the widest between major-party Senate nominees on the 2026 map, wider even than New Mexico's 247-to-1. The New Jersey GOP's inability to recruit for this seat across four consecutive cycles is structural, not cyclical, and the 2024 Menendez-replacement race (won by [[Andy Kim]]) did not reset it. - **Booker's 2028 positioning matters more than this race.** His unspent cash and the floor-speech-record brand are national assets; watch where the surplus goes after November. - **The Murphy platform** — tax cuts, border security, a "windmill-free" Jersey Shore — is the offshore-wind fight imported into a Senate race, which is the only issue in it with a Republican constituency in the state. ## Related KB entities - [[Cory Booker]] — incumbent - [[Justin Murphy]] — Republican nominee - [[Andy Kim]] — the 2024 seat ## Content leads - **Blog**: low priority. - **Data**: fundraising asymmetry across the 2026 Senate map — NJ and NM as the two endpoints. ## Sources - [New Jersey Monitor — Justin Murphy wins GOP primary to face Booker (June 2, 2026)](https://newjerseymonitor.com/2026/06/02/justin-murphy-gop-primary-cory-booker/) - [WHYY — Republican Senate nomination results](https://whyy.org/articles/new-jersey-election-2026-primary-senate-republican-nomination/) - [New Jersey Globe — Booker, Murphy will debate Oct 8 (July 24, 2026)](https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/booker-murphy-will-debate-on-october-8-sponsored-by-n-j-globe-and-rider/) - [WHYY — 2026 voter guide (Sept 4, 2026)](https://whyy.org/articles/new-jersey-election-2026-voter-guide-midterms/)