Who is Tammy Murphy? Everything you need to know about New Jersey’s first lady and Senate candidate.

Tammy Murphy, the wife of Gov. Phil Murphy, is officially running for the U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey that is held by Sen. Bob Menendez, who faces federal corruption charges.

Murphy, 58, has a background in finance and has never held public office, though she maintains her own staff and had been nicknamed “co-governor” by some political insiders, a label she rejects. She made the announcement, which has been widely expected, in a video posted Wednesday morning.

“We need a senator who will work every single day to lower the cost of living, protect abortion rights, end the gun violence epidemic, and defend our democracy,” Murphy said in the video.

Here’s everything you need to know about Murphy, and why she’s jumping into a Democratic primary for one of New Jersey’s Senate seats:

Murphy is a Virginia native who grew up in a Republican family in Virginia Beach. She met Phil Murphy at the University of Virginia, and they crossed paths again when they both worked for investment banking company Goldman Sachs.

They later reconnected in London and got married a few months later, eventually settling in New Jersey in 1998. She remained a registered Republican until the mid-2010s, according to NBC News.

As first lady, Murphy has been focused on maternal and infant health, with a goal of improving the state’s high pregnancy-related death rate. She also launched a successful financing network for female-owned start-ups and raised millions for pandemic relief.

If elected, Murphy would become the first woman to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.

Murphy is the second candidate to enter next year’s Democratic primary, joining U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, who officially launched his campaign last week.

“I felt like there needed to be a very quick, and immediate, and strong response to his very quick, immediate and strong response that he’s not going anywhere,” Kim told The Inquirer.

Kim is a Rhodes scholar who served as a national security officer under former President Barack Obama before being elected to Congress, flipping a South Jersey seat that was held by Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur.

» READ MORE: Can Andy Kim beat the machine?

About an hour after Murphy announced her Senate bid, Menendez accused Phil Murphy of demanding the senator’s resignation to help his wife get elected to public office.

“When Phil Murphy rushed to judgment and called on me to resign, it was clear he had a personal, vested interest in doing so at the expense of core democratic principles — the presumption of innocence and due process,” Menendez said in a statement. “Governor Murphy has said he won’t appoint his wife to the seat, but why would he since there was never a need to? They believe they have to answer to nobody, but I am confident that the people of New Jersey will push back against this blatant maneuver at disenfranchisement.”

Menendez stepped down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but remains in office and has not announced whether he will seek reelection.

Menendez has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, pocketed bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy benefactors seeking his help with their business and legal problems. The alleged gifts range from gold bars to a $600,000 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible.

Several prominent Democrats have called for Menendez to step down, including Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and both of Pennsylvania’s senators: Bob Casey and John Fetterman.

“When you find gold bars stuffed in mattresses, the jokes write themselves. But this isn’t funny,” Fetterman said in a statement this month after proposing sanctions for members of the Senate under indictment for certain crimes. “We must protect our national security, and that means ensuring that senators who are indicted for acting as foreign agents can’t access our national secrets.”

More candidates could enter the race. The names of U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross, Josh Gottheimer, and Frank Pallone Jr., all New Jersey Democrats, have also been floated as contenders, but none has commented publicly on running.

Former Newark school board member Lawrence Hamm, who challenged Booker in the 2020 New Jersey primary, announced that he’s running for the Senate seat. Patricia Campos-Medina, who runs the Worker Institute at Cornell University, said earlier this week that she plans to enter the race, according to the New York Times.

One candidate who dropped out of the fray is Kyle Jasey, a real estate lender and the son of Assemblywoman Mila Jasey of Essex County. On Monday, Jasey ended his campaign and announced he’s running instead for the U.S. House in the Eighth District in Hudson County, a seat that is held by Menendez’s son, Rep. Rob Menendez.

The deadline to enter the race is April. The Democratic primary will be held in June.