BREAKING: Tammy Murphy just announced she’s dropping out of the race for U.S. Senate in New Jersey, which clears the way for Andy Kim to replace Bob Menendez and be the next U.S. Senator from New Jersey. Such great news & such a great person to replace Bob Menendez. pic.twitter.com/bfJH8MtwLZ — Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) March …
Good News Open Thread: Andy Kim for Senate!Post + Comments (51)
Meet the Dem who won a Trump district in 2018 & 2020 but now is an insurgent against the entrenched Dem machine in Jersey.
This @AndyKimNJ vs @TammyMurphyNJ matchup is 1st real Dem primary battle since '00.
It's all about the lines. My weekend column.https://t.co/5Z2zSYiNav
— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) March 23, 2024
Per the Washington Post, “In New Jersey, an insurgent upends a Democratic machine”:
[Gift link]:
… Kim, a third-term congressman from the state’s Philadelphia suburbs, had just thumped Tammy Murphy, the wife of the popular governor, Phil Murphy (D), by nearly 20 percentage points in her home county to collect the endorsement for the Senate nomination.
Kim both secured the Monmouth Democrat’s “line” — a top placement on the June 4 primary ballot — and jolted the state’s Democrats into realizing they had their first real battle for a statewide nomination in nearly 25 years…
Kim, 41, has turned the Senate race into something bigger than just a fight over who should replace the state’s senior senator, Bob Menendez (D), who faces a felony corruption trial later this year and is mulling running as an independent.
Now Kim is trying to fight against the system of these county party chiefs, both through running to defeat their handpicked candidate, Murphy, and by battling in court to try to outlaw the “line” system.
“It’s more of a movement to try to restore power back to the citizen, to the voters, to the people. And that appeals to a wide swath,” Kim said.
This is not one of the standard ideological battles of far-left progressives against mainstream liberals that have dominated the last decade of Democratic politics. Kim, a Rhodes scholar, served in the State Department and on the National Security Council under the Bush and Obama administrations. He jumped into politics in 2018, even though he was a long shot in a GOP district.
He eventually received large establishment backing and eked out a win by 1 percentage point. He has positioned himself more along the lines of other national security experts from that massive Democratic class of 2018, smart technocrats who don’t embrace the rage-against-the-machine ethos of the self-proclaimed “Squad” of far-left liberals…
One scorecard, ranking votes from 2021 when Democrats moved an aggressive agenda, gave Kim an 80 percent liberal rating, tying for seventh most liberal out of the state’s 10 Democrats in the House…
Much more, including details of ‘the line’, at the link.
How did Andy Kim beat the machine? https://t.co/8EbxE7v89k via @TPM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 24, 2024
… What makes this a bigger deal than just another primary in a fairly safe Democratic state is that it managed to bring to the fore an almost comical feature of New Jersey politics — something called “the line,” which allows county party chairs the ability to exercise an absurd power over the design of ballots to assist their chosen candidates. Machines have long half-lives. But it seems questionable whether the line will survive this race, whether it goes down in the current court fight or just can’t withstand the new scrutiny the race has brought to it. If it is done that will deal a pretty debilitating blow to the party machines in New Jersey…
I’m no expert on New Jersey politics. But the real factor here is that Kim was willing to risk everything at just the right moment. My recollection is that he announced his candidacy the day after the original Menendez indictment. (I guess we have to be clear that Menendez was indicted before and beat the rap. I mean, the original indictment this time, before the various superseding indictments.) The key I think is that Kim got in fast before the machine really realized that Menendez was toast. And because they didn’t yet realize that Menendez was done, they hadn’t had a chance yet to get behind and coalesce around a new person. That ended up being Murphy, the wife of the current governor.
This gave Kim a critical window of opportunity that he used almost perfectly.
Kim had enough of a national brand, in part based on the iconic photos of him literally sweeping up the glass and debris of January 6th, that he was able to build momentum and raise money. He also gained mightily from his willingness to say, more or less on day one, fuck this. This crook should not be senator. I’m going to challenge him.
Every other Democrat was still caught off guard and uncertain how to react, not withstanding the fact that Menendez has long been fairly notorious. Rightly or wrongly I think many people at least figured he’d keep his nose clean after he beat his previous high profile federal charges. Oh well.
Too soon to say it’s 100% over. Kim hasn’t been elected senator yet. But it certainly seems like one of those the fates favor the bold kind of moments.
New Jersey Democratic voter:
He's a good guy who has done a good job in Congress and he happened to be running against a person who is a particularly egregious example of machine politics at work & also had some unique flaws that highlighted the sleaziness of how D politics operates in NJ. https://t.co/6AKr0hbwld
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) March 24, 2024
I support Kim, but had she won the primary, I would have voted for her in Nov. There was ZERO rationale for her candidacy other than who she is married to. She's done NOTHING as First Lady + is a former Republican. Andy Kim is a great Congressman & will be an even better Senator! https://t.co/bZAFhxJksG
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) March 24, 2024
Watched Tammy' Murphy's "I'm dropping out" video: completely disingenuous (no one asked her to run, she had little/no grass roots support, and she didn't have to "tear down" a fellow Dem in order to win) and then didn't even endorse Andy Kim. Classless, clueless, and tone deaf.
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) March 24, 2024
Bonus content / readership capture…
My wife wasn’t thrilled when I put this Lego Millennium Falcon on our wedding registry. To not seem completely self-indulgent, I told her I’d wait until we had kids to build it. Today, after 10 patient years, the adventure begins. #MayThe4th #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/LTEWOUa6oi
— Andy Kim (@AndyKimNJ) May 4, 2021