By almost any measure, 2024 was a horrible year for New Jersey Democrats. United States Senator Robert Menendez resigned after he was caught pocketing gold bars and $500,000 in cash from foreign nationals. Governor Phil Murphy twisted in humiliation after his wife, Tammy, dropped her short-lived campaign to replace Menendez. Donald Trump turned Democratic counties red all over the state on November 5.
But then there was Andy Kim.
The soft-spoken foreign-policy geek from Burlington County emerged as a singular ray of hope in the Election Day gloom that settled over Jersey Democrats. On a night when Trump and company were rolling up big numbers almost everywhere, Kim won a decisive victory over Cape May businessman Curtis Bashaw to become the first Korean American in history elected to the U.S. Senate.
Kim’s win was a political slap in the face to the big-money donors and party bosses that have held sway in the Garden State for decades. More than 90 percent of the $12 million that donors sent his way came in contributions under $100, data shows. Kim rejected corporate PAC money, too.
“We showed that politics isn’t just some exclusive club for the well off and the well connected,” Kim told supporters at his election-night victory party. “We built something that epitomizes the grassroots.”
For a politician who took on the governor’s coalition and other Democratic titans to win the Senate nomination, Kim spoke with a humility that first won over voters six years ago, when he was elected United States Representative in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District. He verged on tears recalling how his mother and father had emigrated from Korea before he was born, and how he began to pursue the American dream in New Jersey. He addressed much of his victory speech to his wife, Kammy, and the couple’s two young children.
“I know this has been tough, and I know there have been moments when I haven’t been there for you, and I am sorry,” he said, embracing his children. “I hope you understand why I did it.”
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Kim, 42, still lives just down the street from the Moorestown home where he grew up. Born in Boston, he moved with his family in 1987 to Camden County, where his father began work as a cancer researcher. His mother, also from Korea, was a nurse.
He graduated from the University of Chicago and earned a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. He worked at the State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House Security Council during the Obama administration.
After winning election as a U.S. representative, Kim became a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and was an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, marriage equality and military aid to Ukraine.
Kim’s political profile rose dramatically in 2023, when he announced his U.S. Senate candidacy the day after Menendez was indicted for bribery. He made his move without waiting for Democratic party leaders to weigh in on who might replace the damaged Menendez.
Kim further irritated party leaders by filing a lawsuit to reform New Jersey’s primary election system and the infamous “party line” ballots that favored candidates chosen by local political bosses. Kim’s insurgent attack on the party-line system put him in direct opposition to Murphy’s wife, Tammy, a political novice who was also running to replace Menendez and was rolling up endorsements of local bosses.
Tammy Murphy was forced to withdraw amid widespread criticism that the governor was strong-arming party members to support her. “Andy Kim is a committed reformer and a genuinely nice guy,” says Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Center for Politics at Rider University. “But to some extent, he became the champion he is because he was pushed into a bad place. To his credit, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Jeff Pillets is a journalist based in Trenton who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2008.
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