Will Phil Murphy run for president in 2028?

Phil Murphy, the former Democratic governor of New Jersey who served two full terms and left office in January 2026, has not taken a 2028 presidential run off the table but treats it as a remote possibility. Asked about his interest near the end of his gubernatorial term, Murphy said he had 'not taken anything off the table' but 'wouldn't put a lot of money on that' -- a formulation that signals personal skepticism rather than active planning. He has not filed with the Federal Election Commission, has not formed a campaign committee, and has not taken any public steps consistent with a presidential campaign.

The structural context for a Murphy candidacy begins with New Jersey's place on the electoral map. New Jersey carries 14 electoral votes and is classified Safe Democratic -- it voted Democratic at the presidential level in 2016, 2020, and 2024. The state has a large and reliably Democratic presidential coalition. A presidential candidate from New Jersey adds no built-in swing-state leverage to the national ticket; the vice-presidential pick on a Murphy-led ticket would still need to supply battleground credibility from a genuine tossup state -- Pennsylvania (19 EV), Georgia (16 EV), North Carolina (16 EV), Michigan (15 EV), Arizona (11 EV), or Wisconsin (10 EV) -- to be competitive in the Electoral College. Murphy left the New Jersey governorship in January 2026 when he was succeeded by fellow Democrat Mikie Sherrill, freeing him from any dual-role timing conflict with a 2028 campaign.

The 12th Amendment provides that a state's presidential electors may not cast both their presidential and vice-presidential votes for candidates from their own state. Murphy is a New Jersey resident. Cory Booker, the U.S. Senator from New Jersey who is also tracked as a possible 2028 Democratic presidential contender, is likewise a New Jersey resident. A hypothetical Murphy-Booker or Booker-Murphy ticket would place New Jersey's 14 electoral votes at risk under the 12th Amendment same-state constraint -- the same mechanism that led Dick Cheney to change his legal residency from Texas to Wyoming before the 2000 election. Each of the other leading 2028 Democratic contenders is from a different state: Newsom (California), Harris (California), Buttigieg (Michigan), AOC (New York), Shapiro (Pennsylvania), Whitmer (Michigan), Beshear (Kentucky), Kelly (Arizona). The Murphy-Booker same-state pairing is therefore the specific 12th Amendment exposure to note if either pursues the presidency.

Murphy does not appear as a named choice in any national Democratic primary survey as of mid-2026. The mid-2026 Democratic polling field includes named choices for Harris, Newsom, Buttigieg, AOC, Shapiro, Beshear, Booker, Pritzker, and Kelly; Murphy registers at roughly 1 percent or less in the surveys that name him at all and is not a meaningful factor in prediction markets. His own December 2025 self-assessment -- 'I wouldn't put a lot of money on that' -- tracks with the polling data. Murphy's constitutional eligibility is not in question. He is a natural-born U.S. citizen. He is 68 years old as of mid-2026, well above the constitutional minimum of 35, and would be approximately 71 years old on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2029. He has been a U.S. resident well in excess of the required 14 years. The 22nd Amendment does not apply because he has never been president.