well the governor's decision means he passed over representative Andy Kim the Democratic front runner in the race to permanently replace Senator Menendez the third term Congressman won his primary handle with 75% of the vote and is considered the favorite in the matchup with Republican Curtis Bashaw being appointed to the job early would have given him a leg up but some Democrats remain frustrated with Kim after he took on the political machine to abolish the so-called Partyline ballot system I spoke with the congressman earlier today for our election exchange podcast and asked for his take uh it's an interesting day that we're meeting of course the governor is appointing a temporarily a temporary uh Place filler for the Senate SE George helmy is former Chief of Staff I'd love to get your thoughts yeah well look uh you know I think George is somebody that's worked there at the Senate before when I first met him he was the state director for Senator Cory Booker so he knows the building you know when we're looking for somebody that's going to be able to jump in immediately be able to fill that role for New Jersey for a couple months you know you want somebody that's that knows how to do it that understands how to how to operate around the Senate so I you know I think that you know I certainly support that and I look forward to working with him at the capital for the next few months yeah someone who can hit the ground running um I wonder what the conversations were like leading up to it because of course there was a there was a push for the governor to put you in that seat to lend Democrats perhaps some help in in getting you elected in November and then also Republicans and others who said hey let's not give some power to incumbency let's put an actual uh temporary person in the seat um how did that feel for you uh just given the nature of this entire cycle so far for this race yeah look um you know I I I never made any asks you didn't no I did not um honestly didn't even have any conversations about that with the governor's team you know for me it was just about November 5th um you know I'm somebody that deeply believes that the people of New Jersey need to be the ones that make a choice you know when it comes to their long-term uh so you know I wanted to really focus in on that so you know I'm excited about November 5th and hopefully you know this year being the 50th anniversary of my family my parents immigrating to America uh it'd be a great honor if that's the year in which I get elected as the senator from New Jersey