The USA TODAY Network New Jersey Editorial Board has endorsed Democrat Andy Kim for U.S. Senate.
“If we embark on the dangerous course of a second Trump term, we believe that Kim will be a steady adult in the room, ready to battle the inevitable crisis and chaos that would follow the former president’s return to Washington,” the editorial stated. “To boot, Kim is filled with a Jersey pride that we found imbued with a work ethic he credits to his immigrant parents. He is calm, collected, and ready to serve the Garden State for the challenging years and decades that surely lie ahead.”
The editorial cited Kim’s “asserting positions we support on the sanctity of women’s and reproductive rights, Kim expressed steadfast support for American efforts to support Ukraine and Israel.”
The newspaper network also praised the Republican they rejected, Curtis Bashaw.
“We were taken with his assertions that more compromise is needed in Washington for the sake of American freedoms,” the newspaper said. “Bashaw’s campaign is largely built on pre-MAGA Republican precepts that were, in his words, fueled by the frustrations he felt as a New Jersey businessman who had to navigate complex restrictions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
This is Kim’s third newspaper endorsement: he’s won the backing of the Star-Ledger and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The USA TODAY Network New Jersey Editorial Board appears to be rebranding a decimated opinion section. Gannett replaced local editorial boards at their seven New Jersey newspapers, some of which ran their Kim endorsement. That’s because Gannett fired their regional editorial page editors and mostly pulled out of the opinion business as a cost-saving measure.
Gannett stock prices have dropped by over 76% since they acquired the Bergen Record in 2016.
The New Jersey Globe has confirmed that the editorial board participants included only Bergen Record staff and didn’t include representatives from the other six newspapers. The panel asking questions of Kim and Bashaw included The Record’s executive editor, Daniel Sforza, opinion director Ed Forbes, assignment editor Albina Sportelli, and columnists Mike Kelly and Charlie Stile.
In recent years, after longtime Record editorial page editor Alfred P. Doblin was terminated, the newspaper pulled back from its century-long practice of endorsing national, state, and local candidates.