Kim and Murphy fielded questions starting from help to Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas warfare to native points resembling well being care and affordability.
The place the 2 disagreed primarily, nevertheless, was on the opposite candidate’s health for the function. Kim closely criticized Tammy Murphy’s historical past of donating to Republican candidates — together with George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush — and remaining a registered Republican after the Sandy Hook taking pictures in 2012. He questioned Murphy’s loyalty to voting with the Democratic coalition within the Senate.
She responded together with her work re-building the Democratic Occasion since 2017, when her husband, Gov. Phil Murphy, was the nominee.
“I haven’t voted for a Republican in a common election in additional than twenty years. And you realize, I’ve been a Democrat for 10 years,” she mentioned. “I feel it’s important to know my values are sturdy, they’re Democratic core values, and I’m one who’s on the market day-after-day combating for our state and making us stronger.
In a post-debate press look, Kim reiterated these issues, saying that “New Jersey voters are going to return away with much more questions on her Republican previous.”
Early within the debate, Kim additionally referred to as on Murphy to decide to sharing the highly-coveted “county line,” through which county party-endorsed candidates are grouped collectively on the poll and seem extra reliable to voters. Murphy didn’t instantly reply.
“We simply noticed that always in her debate efficiency, simply the protection of programs,” he added.
Murphy raised her personal issues about Kim’s potential to face as much as Donald Trump, the previous president and Republican front-runner for the nomination. She mentioned that Kim was “considered one of solely eight Democrats who has voted to assist Donald Trump in a number of conditions,” together with on border safety and funding. Kim responded that he had voted alongside President Joe Biden “one hundred pc of the time,” including that he voted to question Trump twice whereas additionally representing a district he gained twice.
“So it exhibits that we are able to be capable to do what is true for the nation,” Kim mentioned.
Affordability dominated a lot of the policy-centered parts of debate, together with
fare hikes to NJ Transit just lately introduced by Gov. Phil Murphy. Kim criticized the rise as a coverage that “goes to harm essentially the most susceptible New Jersey and the folks which are already struggling, and so they inform me that they really feel like they’re simply being squeezed and it’s demise from a thousand cuts. That is the fallacious transfer to make proper now.”
Murphy didn’t criticize her husband’s fare hikes. As an alternative, she mentioned that she’s going to be a “relentless fighter” for federal {dollars} again into the transit system.
