New Jersey GOP Senate nominee Curtis Bashaw is condemning an attack on his opponent, Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), that questioned if the lawmaker had ties to North Korea.
“As someone who has been stereotyped and on the wrong end of hateful incorrect assumptions my entire life, I wholeheartedly denounce baseless accusations based solely on someone’s background or appearance,” Bashaw wrote on the social platform X .
Bashaw was responding to a thread Kim posted on X, calling out the attack by Mike Crispi, a radio host and chair of America Forward New Jersey.
Crispi criticized Kim by saying he appeared to be wearing a North Korean flag on his tie.
“Why is US Senate candidate Andy Kim wearing a North Korea flag on his tie tonight?” Crispi said, posting a photo of Kim on TV. “What is he trying to tell us- Where do his allegiances lie?”
Kim was wearing a tie with red and white stripes.
Kim called Crispi’s attack “disgusting” and “xenophobi[c].”
He also posted examples of anti-Asian hatred both he and other Asian Americans running for Congress have faced during the 2024 election cycle.
Kim posted about Derek Tran, a Democrat challenging Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.). Tran is Vietnamese American and Steel has sent mailers suggesting that Tran supports communism.
Steel “is now using these horrible mailers,” Kim wrote. “Tran is son of Vietnamese refugees who fled communism. He served in the US Army. [Steel] is accusing him of supporting communism. Shameful. She should apologize.”
A Steel campaign spokesperson dismissed Kim’s comments and pointed to actions taken by Tran in the past, including an instance where he denied that Steel, also an Asian American, was an immigrant.
“Trial Lawyer Tran has to apologize for saying Michelle and her family aren’t real immigrants,” Steel spokesperson Lance Trover wrote to The Hill.
Kim also posted about Dave Min, a Korean American running for Congress, who reported last week that one of his yard signs was defaced with an anti-Asian slur.
Kim also pointed to mailers sent out during previous congressional campaigns, where his name was written in Chinese. Kim is Korean.
“These attacks push the ‘perpetual foreigner’ trope that Asians have allegiance to and could be spies for another country like China or North Korea,” Kim wrote in the thread. “This is dangerous.”
Kim worked for the State Department in Afghanistan and also served as a national security staffer in the Obama administration.
“The best way to fight against this racism is to win these elections. Show that AAPI candidates can appeal not just to people who look like us,” Kim wrote, using an abbreviation for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI).
“If elected, I’ll be first Korean American senator after 120 years of Koreans in America. I’ll be first AAPI Senator from the East Coast. I’m proud, but yearn for the day when I don’t need to break barriers and I don’t have my love for this country questioned.”
After Bashaw’s condemnation, Crispi responded by saying Bashaw thought he was “doing something here.”
“The overpaid consultants who carefully crafted this response really thought they were doing something here,” he wrote.
A recent report showed that vitriol against South Asians, including Vice President Harris, for their Asian heritage has skyrocketed this year. Hatred against Asian Americans has also been on the rise since 2020, when the community faced accusations of causing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kim is the heavy favorite to win the Senate race.
Updated at 10:45 p.m. EST.
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