What We Know About Andy Kim, New Jersey’s Likely Next Senator

On Sunday, New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy made the surprising decision to suspend her U.S. Senate campaign, clearing the way for Representative Andy Kim to become the Democratic Party nominee and, likely, the state’s next senator.

Kim first announced his bid after Senator Robert Menendez refused to resign following the announcement of federal charges against him. He initially appeared at a disadvantage to Murphy, who was the Establishment favorite, but his strong grassroots support proved formidable in the end. As he moves one step closer to joining the Senate, here’s what we know about Kim.

What’s his background?

Kim was born in Boston to Korean immigrant parents and was raised in New Jersey, where he attended public schools. He briefly attended Deep Springs College in California, later transferring to the University of Chicago, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2004. After receiving a Rhodes Scholarship and a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, Kim went on to study international relations at the University of Oxford, obtaining both master’s and doctorate degrees.

During his time at Oxford, he met and become friends with Pete Buttigieg, the present U.S. transportation secretary and a fellow Rhodes Scholar, and when Buttigieg was confirmed by the Senate in February 2021, Kim shared a photo of the two of them from their college days:

Before he began his political career, Kim built a significant national security résumé. He worked at the State Department and served on the National Security Council as its director for Iraq during Barack Obama’s presidency, per Roll Call. He was also a civilian adviser to General David Patraeus and General John Allen for five months in Kabul, Afghanistan. In an early ad, Kim said that he had served as “a national security officer for Republican and Democratic presidents.” But a review from the Washington Post found that he slightly embellished the role he held during the George W. Bush administration. Per the outlet, Kim held what was, essentially, an entry-level position at the U.S. Agency for International Development in its Africa bureau for a few months in 2005 after college.

Kim is married to attorney Kammy Kai, and they have two sons.

What do we know about his time in Congress?

In 2018, Kim secured the Democratic nomination for New Jersey’s third congressional district and challenged its Republican incumbent, Tom MacArthur, a former insurance executive and strong supporter of then-President Donald Trump. During his campaign, Kim ran extensively on health care, highlighting his opponent’s support for repealing the Affordable Care Act. He made a point of refusing corporate PAC money early on in his campaign despite running against MacArthur who, at the time, was the New Jersey delegation’s wealthiest member.

During the race, supporters of MacArthur faced accusations of racism for a controversial mailer sent to voters in the district. The mailer, paid for by the New Jersey Republican State Committee, declared, “Something is real fishy about Andy Kim” in a stereotypically Asian font, and featured a photo of several whole fish on ice, as if being sold at a market. And an ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a PAC associated with then–House Speaker Paul Ryan, stated about Kim, “He’s not one of us.”

Kim went on to win the seat by less than 4,000 votes, becoming New Jersey’s first Asian American representative. He’s been reelected twice since then.

During his 2018 campaign, Kim said both parties in Congress needed “new leadership,” suggesting that he wouldn’t support Nancy Pelosi’s bid for another term as House Speaker. Though Kim voted against Pelosi during a closed caucus meeting that November, he would go on to support her in the Speaker election held in January.

Currently, Kim sits on the House Armed Services and House Foreign Affairs committees. From 2021 to 2022, FiveThirtyEight found that Kim voted in line with President Joe Biden 100 percent of the time, including supporting protections for same-sex and interracial marriages and a 2022 assault-weapons ban that later died in the Senate.

Kim gained more national attention following the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol when he was photographed cleaning up garbage left by protesters in the iconic Capitol rotunda. The image quickly went viral.

In an interview with NBC News, Kim said he felt compelled to undo some of the damage left by the horrific events of that day.

“I was just overwhelmed with emotion,” he said. “It’s a room that I love so much — it’s the heart of the Capitol, literally the heart of this country. It pained me so much to see it in this kind of condition.”

He helped clean the Capitol crypt and Statuary Hall before joining his fellow lawmakers on the House floor to vote to certify the 2020 election results after hours of delay. Kim later donated the blue J.Crew suit he wore that day to the Smithsonian for a potential future exhibition after the institution reached out to him.

How did Kim become the Senate favorite?

Kim announced his intent to run a day after the federal government unveiled its indictment against Menendez. The charges prompted many calls for the political veteran’s resignation, including New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, but Menendez remained defiant, which rankled Kim.

“After calls to resign, Senator Menendez said, ‘I am not going anywhere.’ As a result, I feel compelled to run against him. Not something I expected to do, but N.J. deserves better,” he posted on social media.

Tammy Murphy joined the race in November and quickly racked up endorsements from county leaders and the majority of the state’s congressional delegation, despite having no political experience. But in January, Kim was endorsed by Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, one of Menendez’s biggest critics in the chamber, alongside five of Kim’s Pennsylvania colleagues in the House. Fetterman called Murphy a “nepo” candidate, suggesting that her campaign’s support was largely due to her political influence as the wife of the governor. That narrative appeared to take hold in the state, as polling began to show Kim with a substantial lead over Murphy.

A significant plank of Kim’s campaign was his legal push to change the state’s ballot-line system, in which candidates receive preferred placement on county ballots if they’ve been endorsed by the party leaders of that county. Given her local party support, Murphy stood to benefit greatly from this arrangement, to Kim’s detriment. But with her departure, Kim is expected to gain the county lines that she already won in addition to his own. Though he now will benefit from the system, Kim still reportedly wants his lawsuit to continue. “Congressman Kim strongly believes that New Jersey should move to a fair, office-block ballot system,” Kim senior advisor Anthony DeAngelo told the New Jersey Globe. “It’s the right thing for our democracy and the right thing for our state.”