SOUTH JERSEY (AP/ KYW Newsradio) — New Jersey voters have elected Democratic Rep. Andy Kim in the state’s Senate race against Republican hotel developer Curtis Bashaw, a seat that opened because of Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez’s federal bribery conviction earlier this year.
Kim, a three-term House member from New Jersey’s 3rd District, was up against Bashaw, a first-time candidate and businessman from Cape May.
Kim, 42, was first elected to Congress in 2018, defeating Republican Tom MacArthur, a Trump ally. During the campaign, Kim said he would oppose tax breaks for the wealthy and support abortion rights.
A former Obama administration national security aide, Kim was a Rhodes Scholar and has a Ph.D. from Oxford. He’s presented himself as an unassuming, hard-working official and gained national attention in 2021 when he was spotted cleaning up the U.S. Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, bagging trash.
Kim was the first Asian-American from New Jersey elected to the House and is now the first Korean-American in the Senate.
Election results
Bashaw personally financed his campaign with at least $1 million, according to Federal Election Commission records. He gained the GOP nomination in June when he defeated a Trump-backed rival. The first-time candidate has served on several boards including for Stockton University and a state tourism panel.
Bashaw, 64, has said he considers himself a moderate, noting he supports abortion rights and is a married gay man. “When my party’s right, I will support it. But when my party’s not right, I’ll stand up against it,” he said recently.
Bashaw has said he supports Trump, who’s been a lightning rod in the state. Democrats flipped four congressional seats in the 2018 midterm while Trump was president.
Menendez conviction
The Senate race began chaotically for Democrats. The party, which controls the Legislature and the governorship, found itself with an incumbent senator facing a second federal corruption trial. Menendez was convicted on bribery charges that he traded his office for cash, gold cars and a luxury car, and has resigned. But he’s denied the charges — as he did in the earlier trial, which ended in a hung jury.
This time, Democrats abandoned him. Kim launched his own race in defiance of Menendez the day after his indictment last fall.
But it wasn’t an easy path to the nomination. First lady Tammy Murphy launched a campaign that was well-funded and widely backed by insiders. Kim upended politics in New Jersey when he sued in federal court to stop a practice whereby party leaders were allowed to influence how ballots are drawn up, widely seen as helping preferred candidates. The judge, in an initial ruling, sided with Kim. Murphy dropped out and Kim won easily in June.
After Menendez resigned, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy appointed George Helmy as interim senator. The two have said that once the election results are certified in November, Helmy will step down and the governor will appoint the winner to serve the remainder of Menendez’s term, which ends in January.