New Jersey governor to name former aide the caretaker for Bob Menendez's Senate seat

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy plans to name his former chief of staff — who was a longtime Senate aide — as the state’s temporary replacement to the seat of disgraced Sen. Bob Menendez , according to three people familiar with the decision.

Murphy will appoint George Helmy, a former staffer for Sen. Cory Booker who is now a health care executive in one of the biggest hospital systems in New Jersey, to the seat following Menendez’s resignation that takes effect Aug. 20. The people with knowledge were granted anonymity to discuss an impending announcement.

Menendez was convicted of 16 criminal counts last month and announced his resignation as fellow Democrats mulled expulsion, in an extraordinary end to the senior senator’s 50-year political career. Democratic Rep. Andy Kim is on the ballot in November against Republican hotelier Curtis Bashaw to fill the full, six-year term.

One person familiar with the governor's decision cautioned Wednesday evening that an offer was not formally made to Helmy yet. Another person familiar with the pending appointment said that an announcement could come as soon as Friday. Helmy declined to comment.

Helmy, 44, will serve as a caretaker and will briefly join his former boss, Booker, through a presidential contest that could also tip the balance of power in Congress.

Helmy joined the Murphy administration in early 2019, a year into Murphy’s first term that was marked by strife with fellow Democrats who control the state Legislature. Helmy, who had developed deep political relationships during his time as state director for Booker, was widely credited with stabilizing the administration’s relationship with the Legislature and other Democratic leaders around the state. He spent a record four and a half years as Murphy’s chief of staff before taking an executive job at RWJ Barnabas Health, one of the state’s largest health care providers.

Murphy’s decision to name Helmy was first reported by the New Jersey Globe, and the New York Post reported earlier this month that Murphy was “strongly considering” Helmy.

On Wednesday, during his radio appearance on "Ask Governor Murphy," the governor said that he would make a formal decision “in a few days” but declined to name anyone he would appoint to the Senate seat when pressed by host Nancy Solomon. He also declined to comment on specific names, like Kim or Patricia Campos-Medina, who has also been floated as a possible interim senator.

“No discussion of names,” Murphy said. “We've considered a whole range of options, and I'm proud of that fact in the sense that we didn't narrow ourselves into a corner.”

Helmy, who’s originally from Jersey City, worked as a business operations manager for The UPS Store and ran a property management firm before working as an advocate in then-Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s office. Following a brief stint with American Express as a relationship manager for state and local governments, Helmy was hired as a deputy chief of staff for Booker in 2014, then was promoted to state director in 2016, holding that job until his hiring by Murphy.

While Helmy has been in the private sector for nearly a year, he’s remained a close political adviser to the governor and played a large though unofficial role in first lady Tammy Murphy’s aborted campaign for Menendez’s Senate seat.

Murphy’s appointment of Helmy, though not unexpected, will likely lead to some Democratic grumbling if not criticism. Kim, who’s heavily favored to win the November election for the Senate seat, had said he was interested in being appointed as interim senator. However, the Murphys’ relationship with Kim remains strained following the Senate campaign, and Murphy was said to be sensitive to giving the appearance of political interference by giving his party’s candidate an incumbency advantage (Kim faces Bashaw in November).

Other New Jersey Democrats had called for Murphy to appoint a Black or Hispanic woman to the seat. Democratic state Sen. Troy Singleton and some activists backed labor leader Campos Medina, who ran in the Democratic primary and came in a distant second, especially to soothe the loss of such a high-ranking Hispanic politician. Helmy is of Egyptian heritage and is Coptic Chrisitan.