The campaign-style mailers began turning up last month in some of New Jersey’s toniest towns, including Princeton, Montclair and Westfield. The attack ads bore no return address and no “paid for by” disclaimers, a telltale sign of a shadowy strategy in a state known for its mastery of the political dark arts.
But the target of the mailers — Matthew J. Platkin, New Jersey’s outgoing attorney general — was not running for office. And his last day on the job is Tuesday, leaving many puzzled by the tactic and its timing.
“Time and again, Platkin failed New Jersey,” one of the anonymous mailers claimed.
“Matt Platkin: a lawyer who doesn’t know the law,” another stated.
Mr. Platkin, 39, has joined with other Democratic attorneys general to sue the Trump administration 45 times, an effort that has helped the state recoup millions of dollars and established New Jersey as a leader in the fight to protect immigrant rights.
Yet some of his biggest detractors are fellow Democrats, who have been quick to highlight his office’s missteps in the four years he has been attorney general.
The dynamic has underscored the intraparty tension that has roiled Trenton since Robert Menendez, New Jersey’s former senator, was convicted of an elaborate bribery plot in a trial that reinforced the state’s reputation as a place where politicians are willing to peddle their power to enrich themselves and their friends.
The scandal ushered in anti-corruption efforts aimed at taming the strength of Democratic power brokers like Mr. Menendez and electing reform-minded candidates. But the ad campaign against Mr. Platkin, as he is walking out the door, is a reminder of the hurdles those seeking to fundamentally shift the state’s political paradigm still face.
“This is not like a five-year project or a 10-year project,” said Senator Andy Kim, a 43-year-old Democrat who replaced Mr. Menendez in Washington and has led efforts to clean up the state’s politics. “I just keep reminding people: I’m young.”
Some of the antagonism toward Mr. Platkin is tied to his office’s pursuit of racketeering charges against George E. Norcross III, an insurance executive who has wielded extraordinary political power within the Democratic Party, particularly in South Jersey. A judge dismissed the charges, which Mr. Norcross had forcefully denied; the attorney general’s office is appealing the decision.
But it is Mr. Platkin’s and Mr. Kim’s role in fundamentally changing the way elections are run in the state — making room for outsiders who were not handpicked by party leaders — that has most rankled the state’s broader political establishment.
In the throes of his 2024 Senate campaign, Mr. Kim filed a lawsuit that led to the dismantling of a key building block of party control that was unique to New Jersey, known as the “county line.” The line allowed leaders from the Democratic and Republican Parties to group their preferred candidates together in a prominent row on election ballots during primaries — an advantage that almost always resulted in victory.
The night before a hearing on the suit in federal court, Mr. Platkin declared the policy indefensible, hastening its demise and infuriating the Democratic county leaders who had helped to elect his boss, Gov. Philip D. Murphy, and who at the time were backing Mr. Kim’s most prominent opponent: Tammy Murphy, the state’s first lady.
Mr. Platkin, in a recent interview, said he made the decision aware of the likely fallout.
“I knew what it would mean,” he said.
His relationship with the Murphys frayed, and left Mr. Platkin, a longtime confidant of the governor, politically adrift.
“I don’t begrudge them if they were upset with me about it,” he said. “I probably would feel the same way.”
“But I thought it was the right thing to do,” he added.
Since then, each time Mr. Platkin or prosecutors in his office’s public integrity and accountability unit have stumbled, critics in both parties have rushed to amplify the error.
They have had plenty of opportunities. In 2024, an appellate panel ruled that the office had exceeded its statutory authority when it seized control of the troubled Paterson Police Department. The state’s Supreme Court reversed that ruling, however, leaving control of the department in the hands of the attorney general’s office. A trial court judge last year concluded that the allegations against Mr. Norcross did not constitute a crime. And in October, a judge dismissed misconduct charges brought by the attorney general’s office against guards at the state’s only prison for women, citing delays and “prosecutorial negligence.”
“It’s egregious that justice was not served here,” Assemblywoman Aura K. Dunn, a Republican, said of the dropped charges. “This was not made a priority.”
The attorney general’s office is appealing that decision, too.
Mr. Kim’s lawsuit against the state’s election ballot led to a new design, requiring candidates running for the same office to be grouped together and diminishing the advantage of those endorsed by local party leaders. It remains to be seen whether it will permanently alter the state’s political culture.
“It was an earthquake that definitely left cracks in the wall,” said Julia Sass Rubin, an associate dean at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “But the wall is still there, for now.”
In the short term, there are clear signs of change: Several recent elections have drawn unusually competitive primary races. Nine prominent contenders vied to become governor last year, and, unlike in past cycles, no one was a shoo-in. Close to a dozen Democrats are competing in a primary on Feb. 5, for a House seat vacated by the governor elect, Mikie Sherrill, who will be sworn in on Tuesday. In the State Assembly, five Democratic insurgents defeated candidates endorsed by their county’s Democratic leaders.
A sixth Assembly newcomer, Andrew Macurdy, a former federal prosecutor, said he was inspired to make his first foray into politics, as a Kim campaign volunteer, after hearing Mr. Kim speak at a neighbor’s house.
“He spoke very movingly about his family and about why he was doing this and why people were apathetic — because they see politics not working,” Mr. Macurdy, a Democrat from Summit, said.
These days, Mr. Kim is hoping to build what he calls a “national anti-corruption movement” that uses New Jersey as a “proof point.” He said he planned to start looking into the often opaque financial decisions made by county leaders in New Jersey.
“We have to be talking about affordability,” Mr. Kim said. “But we also have to be talking about corruption. Corruption is raising your costs.”
He has already faced pushback in the state capital.
Last month, Mr. Kim and Mr. Platkin sat side-by-side for hours waiting to address a State Senate committee about proposed legislation they both opposed. The bill, pushed by Democrats, would have removed the state comptroller’s subpoena power, significantly weakening the agency’s corruption-busting capabilities.
The chairman of the committee, Senator James Beach, leads the Democratic Party in Camden County and is a close ally of Mr. Norcross.
“This bill was thought of because of you,” Mr. Beach told Mr. Platkin during the hearing, which at times devolved into a shouting match.
“Well, now you’re saying the quiet part out loud,” Mr. Platkin responded.
The legislation was scuttled. But two days later, Mr. Kim announced plans to support candidates willing to take on Mr. Beach and “other elected officials who continue to fuel corrupt machine politics” in New Jersey.
“We need a grassroots army to build an anti-corruption movement,” Mr. Kim wrote on social media. “I’m putting out a call for people to step up.”
As he seeks to reshape the state’s politics, Mr. Kim has extended endorsements in races both big and small.
In Jersey City, the state’s second-largest city, James Solomon, a former councilman who ran for mayor with Mr. Kim’s endorsement, crushed his opponent, Jim McGreevey, a former New Jersey governor. But in Hillside, a 23,000-person township, Mr. Kim’s support for the mayor, Dahlia Vertreese, was not enough to secure her re-election.
She said she had no regrets, and is confident that changes to the ballot will attract more independent voices to politics.
“People are waking up,” Ms. Vertreese said. “More and more, candidates are starting to take their chances.”
Mr. Platkin, meanwhile, said he hoped to continue to try to build public confidence in government after he leaves office. He has accepted a position as a distinguished scholar at the Center for Law and Public Trust at New York University School of Law, which was formed in October by Vanita Gupta, a former associate U.S. attorney general.
On Friday, a fresh round of anti-Platkin placards arrived in mailboxes, suggesting the sender’s desire to tarnish the attorney general’s reputation could have more to do with prosecution decisions facing the incoming administration in the coming months.
“It is a warning to others,” Ms. Rubin said.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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