U.S. Representative Andy Kim (D-NJ) became the first Korean-American to win a U.S. Senate seat. Not only that, Kim is also the first Asian to be represented in the Senate on the entire East Coast.
Kim is a three-term congressman who won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey’s June primary. New Jersey is considered a heavily Democratic state, with a Democratic candidate winning every U.S. Senate election since 1972. Early indications were that Kim was likely to win the seat barring a major upset.
Kim made a surprise announcement to run for the Senate on social media the day after incumbent Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey was indicted on bribery and other charges last year in September.
Following his victory, Kim became an iconic figure of the Korean “American dream”.
In the November 2018 midterm elections, Kim ran as the Democratic candidate for New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District, defeating Republican incumbent Tom MacArthur to become the state’s first Asian-American congressman.
His district, in southern New Jersey, is overwhelmingly white and sparsely populated with Asian Americans. Nevertheless, he won two consecutive elections and a third term through 2022.
On January 6, 2021, when President Trump’s fierce supporters stormed Congress in protest of his 2020 election loss, Kim gained national recognition when he was captured on camera quietly picking up trash in a ransacked Capitol building after the rioters had retreated.
U.S. political observers and the media took note of Kim’s competitiveness during the primary process to select the Democratic nominee in this election.
New Jersey is considered a heavily Democratic state, having not elected a Democratic candidate to the U.S. Senate in more than 50 years. Because of this, the primary race leading up to the general election was considered a tougher and more difficult gateway than the general election itself.
Due to New Jersey’s unique primary system, which can favor candidates endorsed by the state Democratic Party leadership, it is customary for candidates to first declare candidacy to the local party leadership and then seek their endorsement.
But instead of following the convention, Kim chose to challenge and disrupt vested interests, and to project himself as a reformist politician.
He set out to reform New Jersey’s “county lines,” a ballot marking system that has been criticized for being used as a weapon to protect local political interests.
New Jersey had maintained county lines on the ballot, which placed candidates endorsed by local political interests in the most prominent spots on the ballot, while candidates not endorsed by those interests were relegated to the unfavorable spots on the ballot.
Kim filed a lawsuit claiming that this ballot practice was undemocratic and unconstitutional, and the court sided with him.
Initially, the leading contender, Tammy Murphy, wife of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, had the backing of the party leadership, but struggled with stagnant poll numbers amid the controversy over her husband’s support and eventually dropped out of the race in March.
Kim in the primary process has helped boost his political profile as a reformer. After Murphy’s withdrawal, the New York Times (NYT) published an article spotlighting Kim, noting that “his strategy is to not ask permission from anyone.”
His humane nature also shone through on the campaign trail in the run-up to the general election. During a televised debate with Republican Curtis Bashaw on October 6, Bashaw suddenly stopped speaking, broke out in a cold sweat, and staggered to the podium. Kim immediately rushed to his side, grabbed the podium to keep it from falling over, and checked if he was okay.
Kim has said he entered politics with the goal of reviving the seemingly broken American Dream for future generations. “We need to recognize that it’s not just about winning the November 5 Senate election, but how we act afterward. Election Day is not the finish line, it’s the starting line.”
Kim, who grew up in southern New Jersey in his current district, completed his elementary and secondary education in public schools before attending Deep Springs College in California, known for its small, elite education program, and graduating from the University of Chicago.
He was then selected as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a Ph.D. in international relations from Oxford University in England.
Kim later joined the State Department in September 2009 as an Iraq specialist, and in 2011 served in Afghanistan as a civilian strategic advisor to Generals. From 2013 to February 2015, Kim served as an assistant for Iraq at the Department of Defense and the National Security Council (NSC), where he helped lead to the defeat of the Islamic State (IS).
Kim’s father is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)- and Harvard-educated genetic engineer who has dedicated his life to curing cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. His mother, who was a nurse, said she had her son volunteer at the hospital to help him understand what it means to be there for others.
BY HOONSIK WOO [woo.hoonsik@koreadaily.com]
