Andy Kim Dominates Second Debate; Shows Expertise, Substance and Experience Matter

NEWARK N.J. – Tonight, Congressman Andy Kim proved yet again why he is the only qualified choice to serve as the next Senator from New Jersey, and showed why his years in public service have prepared him to step into the Senate on Day One to deliver for New Jersey families. The in-studio debate, which was hosted by NJ PBS’s Spotlight News, offered a conversational format that highlighted just how ready Andy is to serve in the U.S. Senate.

“Tonight’s conversation provided an opportunity for New Jersey voters to hear the very clear contrast between my vision for New Jersey, and my opponents,” said Congressman Andy Kim. “New Jersey families deserve a leader who will stand up for them and their loved ones, protect the fundamental freedoms we know continue to be at risk every day, and work every day to find solutions instead of parroting misinformation and talking points from a party of extremists; I’m ready to be that leader and will be ready on Day One to get to work delivering.”

See Below for Highlights: 

Andy Kim on making New Jersey more affordable:

https://x.com/TeamAndyHQ/status/1843088784667369801        

“I agree that we want to make sure that we’re growing our economy, but we need to make sure we’re growing it for everybody. Right now, the biggest corporations in the world are growing exponentially, but we’re seeing a lot of small businesses really struggling to make ends meet. We’re seeing a lot of people not invested in the stock market. Over half our country is not invested in the stock market. We have a huge racial wealth gap here in New Jersey, $300,000 wealth gap. We see how it affects the Black community, the Latino community, Asian American communities. There’s a lot more that we need to be doing. 

Look, that’s why I took steps to be able to lower prescription drugs costs, for instance. Something that was one of my biggest legislative wins- Being able to cap out of pocket costs for seniors when it comes to their prescription drugs at $166 dollars a month, capping insulin costs at $35 dollars a month, we are trying to do that for all Americans. Look, other things that we did-we passed the child tax credit, something that cut child poverty in half in this country just in one year. These are proven tools, but the Republicans in congress got rid of all these different efforts that we are trying to do to help people through these difficult times. These are some of the things we are trying to fix.”

Andy Kim on abortion rights: 

https://x.com/TeamAndyHQ/status/1843096200284893650

“[Bashaw] said it himself. The Dobbs decision said specifically that the Constitution does not afford a right to abortion. And he agrees with that- and I just disagree…

Yes I was proud to vote for the Women’s Health Protection Act; to codify a woman’s reproductive rights. When I hear you say that you think the position that New Jersey has on abortion and affording reproductive rights to women is extreme…I take issue with that.” 

Andy Kim on addressing the climate crisis and building climate resilience:

https://x.com/TeamAndyHQ/status/1846360973935886548

“Well it does need to be a comprehensive approach. You know, I represented Ocean County for a number of years. There is flooding on sunny days; huge problems, not just about Superstorm Sandy and other challenges. The work we did with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, trying to make our communities more resilient, passed a law that I helped introduce, the Resilient Highways Act, to make sure that people have escape routes, other things like that to be able to help. But yes, we’re not going to get this in a better place unless we do take action to address climate change. 

So the Inflation Reduction Act, other things like that are our efforts to try to do it. We can’t do it alone. We know we need to mobilize across the entire world. But in the meantime, yes, we should be doing more to be able to invest in FEMA response, in resilience, in infrastructure, things like that, that will save, frankly, a lot of money later on on the back end when it comes to disasters.”

Andy Kim on securing our border and fixing our broken immigration system:

https://x.com/TeamAndyHQ/status/1846364411725799846

“…I’m happy to support border security – I think that’s an important component of that. But also we want to make sure that we take these steps to be able to ensure that we have legal pathways. We should be increasing the number of legal pathways. We have a huge backlog of people, and these are people that want to come; high skilled labor, people that want to innovate here, build businesses here. And right now we’re shutting the door on them in so many different ways. And I hope that we have that pathway forward for DACA dreamers and others to be able to show them that they are welcome here.”

Andy Kim on bringing money back to New Jersey to help improve infrastructure and housing:

https://x.com/TeamAndyHQ/status/1846376658816655660

“I look at the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that we did. Something that’s putting billions of dollars back into New Jersey, helping us rebuild our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our public transit. That’s gonna lead into the ability for us to build more housing. We need a decade of building. We need to make sure we are building diverse types of housing, not just big, big, luxury housing. We need to make sure we are building lots of different housing, and government can play a role in incentivizing that.”