Tammy Murphy, New Jersey’s first lady who is running for U.S. Senate, has lagged behind her main Democratic primary opponent, Representative Andy Kim, in public opinion polls and in the race for momentum among rank-and-file voters.
On Thursday, in a sign of a shifting 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 the passion that Max brought to our team and his efforts to stand up this campaign,” the campaign’s spokeswoman, Alex Altman, said.
Ms. Murphy, the wife of New Jersey’s governor, Philip D. Murphy, began her campaign for the seat now held by the state’s embattled senior senator, Robert Menendez, in November. Mr. Menendez, who has been charged with accepting bribes in exchange for political favors, has not ruled out running for re-election.
With the governor’s support, Ms. Murphy quickly racked up endorsements from many of the state’s most influential Democratic Party leaders.
But she has faced a barrage of questions about nepotism and the power that her husband, who has two years left in his term, holds over many of her supporters.
A poll released this month showed that Ms. Murphy, a first-time candidate with limited experience, was trailing Mr. Kim, a third-term congressman from South Jersey, among likely Democratic voters. A week later, Ms. Murphy, 58, lost the Democratic convention in Monmouth County, where she has lived for 25 years, by a large margin.
Ms. Altman described Mr. Glass’s departure as a transition, and said the campaign remained confident that it had a “clear path to winning the primary.”
Mr. Glass said he had no comment.
Mr. Glass, a seasoned Democratic campaign strategist, is married to Mollie Binotto, who ran Mr. Murphy’s 2021 re-election campaign for governor.
In 2022, he ran the re-election campaign of Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. He has also run statewide campaigns in Kansas, Michigan and North Carolina, according to his LinkedIn account.
Saily Avelenda, who until several weeks ago was the director of the Democratic State Committee, has joined the Murphy campaign as a consultant.
Two other Democrats, Larry Hamm, a left-leaning activist who has served on the Newark school board, and Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor leader who runs the Worker Institute at Cornell University, are also competing for the Democratic nomination in the June 4 primary. Several Republicans are vying to run for Mr. Menendez’s seat, including Christine Serrano Glassner, the mayor of Mendham Borough; Curtis Bashaw, a hotel-chain owner from Cape May; and Alex Zdan, a former television news reporter.
Mr. Kim’s spokesman said he had no comment on the Murphy campaign’s staffing change.
Ms. Campos-Medina said the shift showed that Ms. Murphy was learning that her “power and privilege” are not enough to win the race.
“They did not think it was going to be a hard campaign,” Ms. Campos-Medina said. “I think they’re trying to recalibrate. Kim is ahead, and I am breaking ground.”
Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.