Democrats avoid messiness as it looks like Andy Kim now has a clear path to the Senate.
That is good news, at least to me. I like Kim and he has worked his way up. I dislike Tammy Murphy going for the seat on the basis of being a billionaire and wife of the NJ Governor.
I agree it’s good news. Kim is a strong candidate and will be a good senator. Why she dropped out now is the question. It seemed like she was doing much better lately.
Some reasons listed:
But polling showed her at a substantial disadvantage, and in secret ballot county conventions, where county committee members – the lowest level of the state’s party hierarchy – make the decisions, Kim scored a series of stunning victories.
In the first-in-the state convention convention in Monmouth County on February 10, Kim won a 57%-39% victory. Murphy lives in Monmouth, but Kim represents part of the county in Congress.
So my county had something to do with it.
Kim is a good candidate. He flipped a Republic seat to Dem when he won his Congressional Seat.
Pretty nice resume too:
Kim worked at the U.S. State Department. He served in Afghanistan as a civilian adviser to Generals David Petraeus and John R. Allen before working as a national security adviser under President Barack Obama.[1] Kim served as a United States National Security Council official.
This is excellent news.
I haven’t been following the race closely. I did see she won in one of the important county caucus (Bergen?) and there were stories of the governor strong arming officials behind the scenes to support her.
Maybe, just maybe, she is a decent person who didn’t like that, and who would rather not win that way. What a refreshing thought that is. I guess it’s the Frank Capra in me that wants it to be true.
Actually this whole mess starting with Menendez and then Nepo Wife might get one piece of NJ political corruption removed.
Our current system gives too much power to the party bosses in 19 of 21 counties.
This has to with our ballot system. Both parties by the way.
I’ll find an article that sums up the very old mess.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/24/new-jersey-politics-menendez-00148703
Is that seat likely to flip back now? We need the House, too.
Actually, no. Sometime recently his district was redrawn and is now pretty safely Dem.
That’s impressive, no doubt.
But even more impressive to me is that he was on his hands and knees in the Rotunda, late in the night on January 6, cleaning up the shit (in some cases, literally) that the insurrectionists had left behind, keeping the temple of democracy clean.
This is excellent news all around. Andy Kim is a mensch of the first order, he deserves to be elevated and the Senate will be better for it. I hope to hell it doesn’t destroy him. Tammy Murphy had no business running AT ALL, nevermind as a Democrat. The whole thing stunk from the start.
I have no idea what motivated her to drop out but it certainly would be nice to believe it was principle. Time will tell, I guess.
All things point to a reality check. Their own numbers showed she had little chance of winning without spending a really huge amount of her own money.
That was with loads of advantages.