The 2024 race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in New Jersey was effectively decided on March 24, when First Lady Tammy Murphy exited the race, saying she wanted to avoid a bloody and expensive battle. Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), who began his campaign as an underdog fighting against New Jersey’s powerful party organizations, was suddenly the heavy frontrunner for a Senate seat.
But the election wasn’t quite over just yet; Kim still faced two opponents, progressive activists Patricia Campos-Medina and Larry Hamm, in the June 4 primary. There was little question of whether he would win, but his final margin would be an indication of just how popular and well-known he’d become before facing voters.
In the end, Kim won in a landslide, getting 75% of the vote to Campos-Medina’s 16% and Hamm’s 9%. He won almost every single one of the state’s 563 municipalities, with only Prospect Park in Passaic County going to Campos-Medina. (A handful of small towns – Tavistock, Walpack, Teterboro, and Rockleigh – don’t have data available because they cast too few votes.)
And Kim managed that despite only representing one-twelfth of the state in Congress; despite the success of his own lawsuit striking down the county line, the ballot design system that would have likely given him a boost; and despite spending little of the millions he’s raised, airing exactly one TV ad shortly before primary day.
But there are still a couple of warning signs for Kim in the results, particularly in majority-Hispanic areas – areas where indicted Senator Bob Menendez might do well if he chooses to follow through with his independent re-election campaign. Kim’s performance was hugely impressive for a non-incumbent statewide candidate, but there are still a few voters he may need to win over.
Kim’s strengths
Back when it still looked like Kim was going to face a brutal primary against Murphy, who had Democratic organizational support in many of the state’s largest counties, it was widely assumed that Kim would do best among the voters of his own 3rd congressional district. His devoted constituents in Burlington, Monmouth, and Mercer Counties made up one-twelfth of the state; add on the Ocean County residents Kim had represented prior to 2022 redistricting, and that number is closer to one-eighth.
Even without Murphy in the race, it’s very clear that those voters – particularly in Kim’s home of Burlington County – were extremely loyal to their congressman. Kim got more than 80% of the vote in each county, and got 92% of the vote in Burlington; a few towns like Medford and Kim’s hometown of Moorestown gave him more than 95% of the vote.
But Kim’s strengths manifested outside of his home district as well. Kim won overwhelmingly throughout most of South Jersey, where voters were perhaps excited by the idea of finally electing a South Jersey politician to the Senate. (Curtis Bashaw, the Republican nominee for the seat, is also a South Jerseyan.) For example, Salem County – which can often be fickle in statewide primaries, being the only county to vote against now-Gov. Phil Murphy in 2017 – gave Kim 86% of the vote.
Kim was also very strong in wealthy liberal suburbs, another area that was expected to be a source of strength in his potential fight against Murphy. Ridgewood, Millburn, and Summit – three suburban towns that are nowhere near any district Kim has ever represented – all gave him between 88% and 89% of the vote.
Lastly, Kim would be the first Korean American senator in U.S. history if he wins, and New Jersey’s Korean American voters seemed to respond to that prospect with enthusiasm. Palisades Park, the most Korean town anywhere in the country, gave Kim 89% of the vote, and neighboring Fort Lee gave him 86%.
Kim’s remarkable strength among Korean American voters, though, did not necessarily translate to other Asian American populations. Towns like Edison, West Windsor, and Montgomery, which all have large non-Korean Asian American populations, voted for Kim, but not at rates substantially different from neighboring majority-white towns.
Areas of relative weakness
On the flipside, there was one demographic group that Kim clearly struggled with more than any other: Hispanic voters. Up and down the state, towns with large Hispanic populations were more skeptical of Kim than just about anywhere else, with many of their votes instead going to Campos-Medina, the only Hispanic candidate in the race.
Campos-Medina broke through and won in one majority-Hispanic town, Prospect Park, carrying it 39%-38% against Kim; she also did quite well in Perth Amboy, Carteret, Dover, Elizabeth, Camden, and Paterson, all towns with significant Hispanic populations. (In Carteret, Kim beat her by 20 votes; in tiny Victory Gardens, Kim won by just one vote, 26 to 25.)
Campos-Medina’s performance is a sign that many Hispanic voters were intent on maintaining New Jersey’s Hispanic representation after Menendez’s boundary-breaking 18-year Senate career. Menendez, who has filed paperwork to run as an independent, could potentially capitalize on that sentiment in November if Kim doesn’t strengthen his standing in the Hispanic community.
Hamm, who is Black, similarly did best in areas with larger Black populations, though his voters were not nearly as widespread across the state as Campos-Medina’s. Most of his support came from Newark – where he was a school board member decades ago – and its nearby majority-Black suburbs; he got 25% of the vote in Newark proper, and 28% in next-door Hillside.
To be clear, based on town-by-town results, Kim still seems to have won both Hispanic and Black voters overall, the latter by a wide margin. Overwhelmingly Black Irvington, for example, gave him 78% of the vote, and he also did fairly well in Hudson County’s majority-Hispanic towns like Union City and North Bergen. Andy Kim was the preferred choice of essentially every slice of the Democratic primary electorate on June 4; any discussions of “weakness” are speaking in relative terms.
Some of Kim’s relative weaknesses, however, can’t be entirely explained by demographics. There were also a few counties around the state where Kim did relatively poorly across the board – even in towns where, demographically speaking, there was little reason for him to do so.
The clearest example of this is Middlesex County, where Kim got 58% of the vote to Campos-Medina’s 30% and Hamm’s 11%, much lower than his total in neighboring counties. Some of that can be explained by the county’s Hispanic voters, but not all of it. Old Bridge, for example, only gave Kim 57% of the vote despite being majority-white; Matawan, a neighboring town in Monmouth County with similar demographics, gave him 77%.
Passaic, Warren, and Camden all had similar phenomena, with Campos-Medina and Hamm doing reasonably well even in towns where demographics were not especially favorable to them.
Some of that could be attributable to various local factors; Campos-Medina was aligned with slates of local candidates in Camden County and parts of Middlesex County, for example. The order of the counties’ new office-block ballots could have also played a role, since Campos-Medina was listed first for voters in Camden, Middlesex, and Warren Counties, potentially steering low-information voters her way.
The race that wasn’t
Ultimately, while these data can tell us a lot about the election that did happen, they can’t say much about the election that didn’t: the hypothetical matchup between Kim and Murphy.
With his resounding win, Kim proved that he has earned the loyalty of a huge number of New Jersey voters, especially in his home district. And he didn’t need to spend much money to accomplish that, with most of his advantages coming instead from on-the-ground campaigning and earned media coverage.
But if he were put up against a genuinely formidable foe like Murphy, who had her own bases of support and powerful allies, there’s no telling what would have happened. Both candidates would have likely spent millions of dollars on advertising and held constant campaign events across New Jersey, a very different state of affairs than Kim’s easy win against two opponents with few resources at their disposal.
If Murphy had stayed in, would the county organizations that endorsed her have been able to push her across the finish line? Would Kim have retained the overwhelming support of liberal suburbanites had Murphy been vying for their votes as well? Would Murphy have been able to win the Hispanic and Black voters who voted for Campos-Medina and Hamm – or, as a white candidate, would she have been locked out of that support just as much as Kim was?
All of those questions will, unfortunately, have to remain unanswered. In this timeline, Murphy did leave the race, and Kim did win in a landslide; anything else will have to be left to the imagination.