‘People are ready for change’: Rep. Andy Kim launches 2024 US Senate campaign

A historic spot: Kim, 41, announced his senatorial bid at Double Nickel, a brewery in Pennsauken, New Jersey, on Friday. In an X post, he said the brewery was the same location he had used to kick off his congressional campaign in 2017.

Kim, a former U.S. State Department official who served under former President Barrack Obama’s administration, is looking to replace incumbent Sen. Robert “Bob” Menendez in the 2024 democratic primary. He first laid his plan to run for senate in September.

What he said: Kim called out Menendez before an audience of around 250 supporters, accusing the embattled senator of putting his personal interests first.

“It doesn’t have to be this broken politics where you just have people putting their own personal ambition ahead of what’s good for this country,” Kim said. “It’s about being a decent human being — a decent human being that treats other people with respect.”

Kim was among several public officials who called for Menendez’s resignation after the latter was charged with bribery offenses in September along with his wife, Nadine. Menendez allegedly accepted bribes — including cash, gold bars, mortgage payments and a Mercedes-Benz, among others — from three New Jersey businessmen.

Following bribery, Menendez was charged in October with conspiring to act as a foreign agent of behalf of Egypt. He is accused of handing out sensitive U.S. government information to Egyptian officials.

Menendez has denied all the charges against him.

Driving the news: Kim told reporters that he was driven to run for the senate by the decline in public trust, overseas conflicts, a potential government shutdown and the general feeling that “the world is just spinning out of control.”

“Now is the time for change,” he said. “Now is the time for us to say ‘Enough with our broken politics. We demand it, it is going to be ours for the taking.’”

Menendez has yet to announce a re-election campaign. In a previous statement, he said he had no intention of resigning even after the indictment.