How Donald Trump, Joe Biden and grassroots liberals could upend Democratic politics in one of the country's bluest states

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

66% : It has really amplified general public awareness, which was building.
62% : By the time Donald Trump, the tabloid-star-turned-politician, came along in 2015, the system appeared to be hardened in its favor.
48% : "The (Democratic newcomers) thought they were on the right team here and thought because they were Democrats, they had the ability to stand up and say proudly that they're the party for democracy, especially in light of Trump being president," said longtime progressive activist Sue Altman, a Democratic candidate for the state's 7th Congressional District.
47% : Though New Jersey Democrats picked up US House seats in the 2018 midterms, the state seemed immune to an explosion of political insurgencies, typified not only by the rise of "The Squad" but also the ascent of younger female and minority candidates who sought to wrest power from what they viewed as an indifferent, self-serving establishment.
41% : "The fight against the county line and the political machines really goes back to the election of Trump, when it picked up serious speed," said Rutgers professor Julia Sass Rubin, who testified in Kim's lawsuit and has conducted extensive research on the line's outsize influence.
34% : Their membership, Levin said, is engaged on multiple policy fronts, from health care to immigration, "but the very top issue that they care about is democracy itself - this feeling that it was under threat and this sense that the Democratic Party when Trump got elected was not equipped to take on that threat.
30% : Over the next few years, as political insurgents like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, across the river in New York, and Cori Bush in Missouri unseated longtime Democratic incumbents in races up and down the ballot, progressive groups largely bypassed New Jersey.

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