Andy Kim upended New Jersey politics. Now he’s on track to become a senator

Andy Kim couldn’t rest one evening last September.

“I didn't get a single minute of sleep that night,” he recalled in an interview with NPR, “I really felt like I had to do something and really show people that, you know, when there's these problems in our politics, that there are people who want to step up and try to fix it.”

The problem was his fellow New Jersey Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez. Last fall, Menendez was indicted for the second time on corruption charges. The news might not have rocked most voters in New Jersey — where as many as 80% of its residents said they viewed the state’s politicians as at least “a little” corrupt, according to a May 2023 Fairleigh Dickinson University poll.

But Kim had a different reaction. He quickly became the first Democrat in the state to call for Menendez to resign, then he hastily assembled a call with political advisers to ask: What if he ran for Senate instead?

“Many of them said, ‘Oh, well, look, we can build out a six week roadmap here. We can have a launch video. We can have a website and a press plan.’ And I remember just telling them on the phone, like, ‘What would you say if I launched in 3 hours from now?’ ”

And he did, announcing his Senate bid initially with a tweet, and a formal campaign kickoff last November where he pledged to be “a decent human being.”

Meanwhile, New Jersey’s Democratic political machine had other plans for the Senate seat. Tammy Murphy, the wife of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, jumped into the race despite having no prior political experience and a history of donating to Republicans. Her candidacy added a layer of high-profile political nepotism to a primary race already shaped by corruption as Menendez refused to drop out.

Murphy quickly locked