Democratic Rep. Andy Kim won his party’s nomination for a U.S. Senate seat Tuesday in New Jersey, setting up a general election contest against wealthy hotel operator Curtis Bashaw, who defeated a Trump-backed candidate for the Republican nomination.
Incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez will also be on the ballot after declaring his intention to run as an independent on Monday in the midst of a federal corruption trial. The turmoil surrounding the embattled senator has created the possibility of a headache for Democrats in a state where they haven’t lost an election for Senate since 1972.
Kim, a three-term congressman who launched his campaign after charges against Menendez were announced last year, rose to the top in the state’s dominant political party over a relatively short period. A former Obama administration national security official, he defeated an incumbent Republican in a 2018 House race and won a court ruling this year that toppled a unique-to-New Jersey system widely viewed as giving political bosses influence on who wins primaries.
“Leadership is not about the volume of one’s voice. It’s about the actions that they take,” Kim said in a phone interview. “People are hungry for a new generation of leadership to step up. They are hungry for a change, in our broken politics.” Bashaw, a wealthy hotel developer, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money on the campaign to defeat Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner, who had former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Democrats’ tenuous hold on control of the Senate means they can hardly afford a competitive race in a state widely viewed as safe for the party. It’s unclear how Menendez’s trial will end up and how his candidacy could affect the race. Republicans are eager to exploit his run as a wedge to divide the Democratic vote.
“New Jersey families deserve better than this one-party Democratic monopoly that has represented them for far too long in Washington,” Bashaw said.
Kim’s victory came after a bruising start to the primary, when a battle between him and New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy began to take shape. Murphy, a first-time candidate and the spouse of Gov. Phil Murphy, bowed out of the contest, saying she did not want to engage in a negative campaign against a fellow Democrat. On Tuesday, Kim defeated labor leader Patricia Campos-Medina and longtime grassroots organizer Lawrence Hamm, who remained on the ballot.
Menendez, a three-term incumbent senator, declined this year to seek re-election as a Democrat but filed Monday in Trenton to run as an independent. He has said he hopes to be cleared of the charges this summer.
Kim attacked Menendez and sought to link him to Trump.
“New Jersey has a choice: the chaos and corruption of Bob Menendez and Donald Trump, or a politics that works for families struggling to get by,” he said Tuesday.
Kim, 41, gained attention for helping clean up the Capitol after the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. A native of southern New Jersey, he returned to his home state in 2018 to run for Congress, defeating Republican Tom MacArthur in the 3rd District. A Rhodes Scholar, Kim served in the Obama administration as a national security adviser, working at the departments of State and Defense as well as the National Security Council.
Tammy Murphy joined the contest later last year and quickly earned support from influential county party leaders, a sign that she would be earning their endorsement and with it the so-called county line — or favorable positioning on the primary ballot.
But Kim and other candidates sued to stop that decades-old practice, which is widely viewed as giving New Jersey party bosses sway over primaries, and a federal judge agreed to halt it.
In the Republican Senate contest, Bashaw defeated Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner.
Bashaw centered his campaign in part on ending “one-party monopoly” in New Jersey, where state government is led entirely by Democrats, and on sending a conservative to Washington. It’s unclear whether that message will resonate with general election voters, who have not elected a Republican to the Senate in over five decades. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 1 million in New Jersey.
