The following is an excerpt from an article originally published by Politico on Sunday, May 28.
LYNDHURST, N.J. — Former Vice President Joe Biden blessed the campaign of New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy on Sunday, describing the upcoming election to succeed outgoing Gov. Chris Christie as the “single most important” of the next three years — even eclipsing the 2018 midterms.
In what was largely a repudiation of President Donald Trump, Biden said Democrats haven’t done enough to acknowledge the problems faced by many in middle-class America and said he viewed Murphy — a former Goldman Sachs executive who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during the Obama administration — as the man to do so.
“There are a lot of people out there who are frightened. Trump played on their fears,” Biden told a crowd of some 1,200 Murphy supporters packed into a community center gymnasium. “What we haven’t done, in my view — and this is a criticism of all us — we haven’t spoken enough to the fears and aspirations of the people we come from.”
He said his father used to tell him, “I don’t expect the government to solve my problem, but I damn well expect them to understand my problem.”
Biden opened his remarks by saying he flew to Germany five years ago to encourage Murphy, then the ambassador there, to return home and run for elected office. He did so, Biden said, at the urging of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey.
“I went because I thought, and Frank insisted, that this guy had all the stuff — not only to be our ambassador, but to be a great political leader for us,” Biden said. “I went then to try to get him to jump into a race earlier on.”
Murphy, who has also served as a finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee, decided against running at the time for what presumably would have been a tough race to unseat Christie.
Five years later, Murphy is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination and is widely expected to become the leading candidate in the general election this fall.
But the race has received little attention so far — even within the state. Biden’s Sunday event gave a last-minute boost to Murphy ahead of the June 6 primary, as the former vice president said Murphy should offer hope to Democrats across the country, and told national observers it would be a mistake to ignore the New Jersey race.
“The whole country and, without exaggeration, the world is going to be looking,” Biden told crowd. “They’re going to look to decide whether or not America has bought into this crass and mean spirited and negative and uncomfortable rhetoric that we have been subjected to these last 10 months — or whether [we are] ready to reestablish and assert who were are.”