Andy Kim sworn into U.S. Senate

State Department official. Obama White House adviser. Three-term congressman. Dad. At long last, Andy Kim can add a new title to his resume: U.S. Senator.

Kim, a Democrat, was sworn into the Senate today, taking office a few weeks early after winning New Jersey’s Senate race last month. He succeeds interim Senator George Helmy, who stepped down yesterday after serving for 90 days; Helmy, in turn, succeeded disgraced former Senator Bob Menendez, who resigned in August after being convicted in a wide-ranging federal bribery investigation.

Kim is New Jersey’s first Asian American senator – within just the past few months, New Jersey has had a Black senator, a Hispanic senator, an Arab American senator, and an Asian American senator, a reflection of the state’s remarkable diversity – and the first-ever Korean American senator anywhere in the country. He’s also the third-youngest member of the Senate at 42, and the first senator from South Jersey since Robert Hendrickson left office in 1955.

Some questions still remain, one of which is where Kim will land in the seniority rankings. He currently ranks dead-last, behind fellow newly sworn-in Senator Adam Schiff of California, whose longer prior tenure in the House gives him a leg up. Theoretically, Kim will hop up to 90th on January 3, when ten new senators will be sworn in, but whether this extra month of seniority will count for anything when it comes to things like committee assignments is still unclear.

Also unknown as of yet is what Senate committees Kim will serve on. Kim said he’d be interested in focusing on national security and the economy through his committee assignments, but he may not be able to get everything he wants, since lots of other Senate Democrats who have served for longer may be clamoring for only a handful of seats on top committees like the Foreign Affairs Committee (which was chaired by Menendez until last year).

“I’ve certainly made known [to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer] some of the things I want to get done, but we still need to see the ratios and how that’s going to play out, since Democrats are going to be losing some seats on each committee,” Kim said today.

A Burlington County native, Kim began his career as a national security official, serving as a civilian adviser in Afghanistan and working as one of President Barack Obama’s national security advisers. In 2018, Kim moved back to New Jersey and ran for political office for the first time – and he won, narrowly unseating Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-Toms River) in a district few initially thought he could win.

Kim spent five years in the House steadily building up his profile, with the most notable moment coming when he was photographed on January 7, 2021 cleaning up the Capitol Rotunda after the building was stormed. Then he, like everyone else in New Jersey politics, was stunned last September when a scathing federal indictment was unsealed against Menendez, alleging that the three-term senator traded his influence in Washington for cash and gold bars; Kim launched a Democratic primary campaign against Menendez the day after the indictment.

Much like in his first House campaign, Kim was largely counted out by the New Jersey powers-that-be at first. Not because Menendez seemed unbeatable – polling showed that the indicted senator instantly became wildly unpopular in the eyes of his constituents – but because top state Democrats were preparing to support First Lady Tammy Murphy, and they could almost always expect to get what they wanted.

But Kim outmaneuvered them, harnessing grassroots anger at the political system that had propped up Menendez for three decades and turning it into a formidable statewide operation. Kim built up a consistent polling lead against Murphy and defeated her at almost every open county convention in the state; even though she still had guaranteed support from many top party leaders, Murphy decided against waging a scorched-earth campaign and dropped out of the race shortly before the filing deadline.

A week after Murphy’s exit, Kim notched another major win when a federal judge ruled that the county line, the ballot design system that has long let New Jersey’s county parties shape primary ballots in their favor, was likely unconstitutional. The judge barred the use of the line in this year’s Democratic primary – which Kim won easily against two progressive activists – and settlements since then likely mean that the line is gone for good.

In the general election, Kim faced Curtis Bashaw, a hotel developer who had never run for office before. Though he cut a moderate profile, Bashaw struggled to convince donors and national Republicans that the race was worth investing in, and Kim defeated him 54% to 44% – the closest New Jersey Senate election since 2006, but also an overperformance of Kamala Harris’s unexpectedly tight six-point win in the state.

Now that he’s been sworn in, Kim will be joining a shrunken Democratic caucus in the Senate that, after four years in the majority, will have to readjust to the reality of a GOP-controlled Washington dominated by Donald Trump. But whatever may come, Kim said he’s ready to fight on New Jersey’s behalf.

“This is certainly going to be a moment I will never forget for the rest of my life,” Kim said today, shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris gave him the oath of office. “To be able to swear that oath and see my two boys up in the gallery looking down – it’s incredibly meaningful. I’m humbled by this, and I’m ready to get to work.”