Up against a politically and geographically connected frontrunner, Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) this week continues to call assembly people in the Democratic caucus in an effort to secure backing for the speakership, according to party sources.
A veteran legislator and former Democratic state party chair, Watson Coleman naturally headed a short-list of successors to retiring Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden).
But the Mercer County product's difficulty in a state controlled by powerful political fiefdoms is she hails from a county that is the Democratic Party equivalent of Somerset.
If the measure included time in the trenches and advocacy of progressive party causes, she looked tracked to become the Assembly's first African American woman speaker.
Tags: Advocacy, African American Woman, Assembly Majority, Democratic Caucus, Democratic Party, Democratic State, Ewing, Fiefdoms, Joe Roberts, Majority Leader, Mercer County, New Jersey Politics, Party Chair, Party Sources, Progressive Party, Somerset, Successors, Trenches, Veteran Legislator, Watson Coleman, Woman Speaker