I first started thinking of challenging Sen. Bob Menendez in January of 2018. My wife and I were in Mexico City to celebrate her birthday, and I was reading about the Menendez trial that had just concluded. As a lifelong New Jerseyan, I felt both embarrassment and frustration. How could it be that this scandal-ridden man was the best that we could do? In this state full of intelligent and resolute people, why wasn’t anyone willing to challenge Bob Menendez and stand up for the people of New Jersey?
This frustration lived in my head for years, and my wife and I would talk about it often. Having worked on campaigns in the past, I figured that we would need at least a year to rally the support to win. However, my wife and I are pragmatic. We decided that if a prominent Democrat had the courage to run against Menendez, I would not enter the race. It was never about us, it was about giving our family, friends and neighbors an option other than Menendez. Even if we would likely lose, someone had to punch Bob Menendez in the nose for the people of NJ.
While I believed in my heart that someone had to challenge Menendez, this was still a very tough decision. I’ve spent ten years building a business, and I had to fight like hell to keep it alive during the pandemic. Many of my clients and business associates don’t share my politics, and this would potentially put my business at risk. In addition, I now have two young sons (3.5 and 1.5 years old), and I worried about what taking on this challenge, and potentially winning, would mean for them. I still worry about this.
Ultimately, my sons are why I’m doing this. There is an idea regarding parenting which I believe to be true: more is caught than taught. What this means is that the most powerful thing that you can do for your children is to serve as a great example. I was blessed with two amazing parents who did this for me, and now it is the best gift that I can give to my children.
If there was a defining moment for me in deciding to run, it happened last summer, just after my 40th birthday. After two vaccination shots and a booster, I got sick with Covid. While my initial symptoms passed within a few days, long Covid proved to be harder to shake. My blood pressure shot through the roof and my heartbeat was irregular. My lungs were filled with fluid, and walking up a flight of stairs would leave me completely out of breath. I could only sleep by sitting upright at my desk, and reading books to my sons became impossible due to the coughing fits. Facing another nearly sleepless night and worried I might have a heart attack, I called my brother, who is a doctor, and he said that I needed to go to the hospital.
That night at the hospital was the longest of my life. All that I could think about was that I wouldn’t be there to raise my sons. I’m not a very religious person, but I prayed to God to just let me get them through high school.
As I sat there on the hospital bed waiting for each new test, another thought entered my mind. My sons would never see me stand up and fight for something. I’d always felt that I was meant to do something for the greater good, and now my story seemed to be ending. By the grace of God, I was spared that night and given a second chance. I would later find out that my heart’s ejection fraction was a 26, which put me at high risk of sudden heart failure. This time last year, I was wearing a mobile defibrillator at all times, which would hopefully shock my heart back to life if it failed.
One year later, I’m out of the defibrillator and running for the U.S. Senate. I feel blessed to have this opportunity, and I do not plan to waste it.
If there’s one thing that my experiences over the last year have taught me, it’s that we need universal health care. Despite paying over $20,000 a year for my family’s health insurance, I avoided going to the hospital on multiple occasions for fear of the cost. No one should ever have to make that calculation. We also need to increase support for small businesses, increase the housing supply, and raise the minimum wage. We need to prevent massive hedge funds from buying up all of the single-family houses, and we need to protect women’s reproductive rights once and for all. We need to bring down the cost of higher education, and we also need a criminal justice system focused on decreasing recidivism. There is so much work to do.
When I started this journey, most people thought that I was crazy. After the recent indictments, the party is now turning on Bob Menendez and it is clearer than ever before that he must go.
Things are moving very quickly now, and it’s impossible to know what will come next. As better funded politicians now find their courage and enter the race, I will stay the course. I believe that courage counts for something, especially in politics. My hope is that the people of NJ will agree with me, and will choose to support the man who was willing to walk into the arena for them before the dragon fell.
Kyle Jasey is an asset-based real estate lender and small business owner. He holds a BA in Public Policy from Duke University, and an MBA in Management and Business Strategy from Rutgers Business School. He lives in Jersey City with his wife Marielena, their two sons, Harvey and Harrison, and their Scottish Terrier Sofia.