Friends with political benefits: Andy Kim and Rob Menendez try to move on after a rough year

NEWARK, New Jersey — Reps. Rob Menendez and Andy Kim hugged it out, literally.

Menendez is throwing his support behind the fellow Democrat who is vying to fill the Senate seat long held by his father, Bob Menendez, who resigned this summer after being convicted of federal corruption charges .

The younger Menendez on Friday took Kim on a walking tour of businesses in Newark’s North Ward along Bloomfield Avenue, the center of an old Italian neighborhood that has gradually become a major Hispanic one. At one spot, they drank iced tea with aloe vera juice.

The endorsement may do as much to help Rob Menendez as it does to help Kim: It again signals that the younger Menendez stands outside his father’s shadow and without sour grapes.

“We’re big boys, we’re grownups, we’re colleagues in Congress, we understand the dynamics here,” Kim said in an interview.

Those dynamics include Kim jumping into the Senate race the day after Bob Menendez was indicted last September and Kim continuing to beat up on the senator until he announced his resignation in July.

It also shows neither Kim nor Menendez are going to let such dynamics divide Democrats. By contrast, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has yet to offer a specific endorsement of Kim after a tense primary between Kim and Murphy’s wife.

Perhaps that’s because Menendez has a clear-eyed reading of what happens if Kim wins. Because both are relatively young, they are poised to serve New Jersey for years if not decades together. Murphy, meanwhile, is heading into the last full year of his second term and has no obvious future in elected politics, so he has less to lose from a rocky relationship with another statewide officeholder (the governor has said there is no “high school drama” with Kim.)

While Rob Menendez hasn’t said much publicly about his decision to endorse, he and Kim have found things to bond over: They share the same July 12 birthday (Kim is older) and have young families — two kids apiece. Both also navigated complex and unique political challenges to get through the primary. Menendez won his primary while headlines about his father’s corruption dominated New Jersey political news. Kim fought off first lady Tammy Murphy and tore down New Jersey’s machine politics by successfully challenging in court a unique ballot design system that gave party bosses unusual sway in primaries.

Menendez and Kim publicly eased into things after they both won their primaries and Bob Menendez announced he would resign. In early August, Kim visited Rob Menendez in his North Jersey congressional district to highlight Biden administration investments in train tunnels to connect New Jersey and New York.

But, behind the scenes, they were staying in touch during a rough year for the Menendez name.

“I tried to be respectful, throughout this whole process I’ve kept in touch with him, let him know some of the things that I’m doing and always just said, ‘none of this affects me and you,’” Kim said.

When Menendez showed up for the Newark campaign event on Friday, he gave Kim a side hug before they toured a smoothie place, two drug stores and beauty salon. During the tour, Kim, who represents a South Jersey district, was open about being a relative outsider trying to get to know the area.

A day before, Kim’s campaign released Menendez’s endorsement statement calling Kim “the right candidate” who “will be an incredible public servant.” In a separate statement, Menendez said he looks forward to partnering with Kim in the House — “and soon as our next U.S. Senator." Menendez bantered with business owners on the tour, but when it came to a reporter’s questions about the endorsement, he referred back to his earlier statement.

Kim’s Republican opponent, Curtis Bashaw, said in an interview that Kim didn’t distance himself from Bob Menendez soon enough, claiming he “knew Menendez was corrupt” but still stood by him.

He also pointed out that Rob Menendez’s late endorsement, Murphy’s non-endorsement and other holdout Democrats, like Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage, “says a lot” about Kim.

But he also offered a seemingly gracious aside about Rob Menendez’s move.

“I’m sure that Bob’s son is not Bob and that’s the way torch does gets passed, so it’s a milestone in the history of that family and our state,” Bashaw said.