Curtis Bashaw, a Cape May hotelier, faces off against Andy Kim for ‘the Menendez seat’ in U.S. Senate race

SUMMIT, N.J. — Curtis Bashaw is out of his element.

The Congress Hall hotelier from Cape May is way, way on the opposite end of New Jersey, at a commuter train station in Summit in North Jersey on a Tuesday morning, 42 days from Election Day.

Having logged 71,000 miles in his Suburban during this U.S. Senate campaign, the Republican developer and newbie politician has familiarized himself with the nooks and crannies of New Jersey retail politics.

He is facing off against the high-metabolism campaign of Democratic favorite U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, of Moorestown, in an unexpectedly South Jersey-flavored race between two men who both attended Cherry Hill East, though decades apart and Bashaw just for ninth grade.

Both say New Jersey can do better than the man who held the seat for 18 years: former Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat convicted of 16 counts in a federal political corruption case and whom both still seem be running against in their campaigns.

Used to welcoming guests on his gracious hotel veranda, Bashaw, 64, is nudging his way into people’s hectic morning routines, trying to get himself in front of voters, especially Democrats and independents, giving his best (train) platform pitch.

”I’m a business guy from Cape May, I run hotels and restaurants, I employ a thousand people, fiscal conservative, social moderate, not a politician, running for the Bob Menendez seat,” he told commuters.

“Certainly better than Menendez,” responded P.J. Sala, 50, a Democrat voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race.

A married, gay, moderate who supports abortion rights but is voting for former President Donald Trump, Bashaw described his campaign as “walking a balance beam.”

The developer is the grandson of the famous fundamentalist radio preacher Carl McIntire, and counts former New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey as a friend, after having personally helped McGreevey navigate his uber-public coming out journey.

He is trying to find the wedge issues to gain traction against Kim in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican senator in 52 years.

Is it Israel (he’s a full-throated supporter)? The fact that he’s a Republican who supports abortion rights and LGBTQ rights? Immigration and the border? The economy?

“I think the acrimony in our politics, people want the air let out of that,” Bashaw said a few days before his train stop visit, sitting on one of the Great Lawn’s wicker chairs behind his Congress Hall. “They’re exhausted. I’m running a hopeful campaign. I want to talk about the issues. Andy Kim’s reportedly a nice guy, and I’m a nice guy, so hopefully that’s off the table.”

For his part, Kim, 42, toppled an entire political machine, New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy, and a long-enshrined political process — the so-called line that favored party-endorsed candidates in primaries — along the way. Gov. Phil Murphy said he’s voting Democratic, but has not explicitly endorsed Kim, nor has Kim explicitly asked for the endorsement.

Bashaw thinks he’s taken one big issue off the table with his abortion position. He said he would vote against any national abortion ban, and in favor of a national law enshrining abortion rights. He’s also in favor of background checks for gun purchases.

“It’s hard for Andy Kim to accept that I’m pro-choice,” he said.

A Republican SuperPAC, United 2024, released an ad for Bashaw this week, calling Kim a “D.C. pretender” and Bashaw a “different kind of Republican,” and showing him at home with his husband, Will Riccio, owner of Louisa’s in Cape May and co-owner with Bashaw of Beach Plum Farms.

”I would not regulate a woman’s right to make a decision about her body and reproductive health. A bipartisan bill would just settle the issue.”

Andy Kim isn’t buying it.

Kim portrayed Bashaw as a multimillionaire who can self-fund a campaign without any significant public service. He questioned how Bashaw can be in favor of abortion rights and also support the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which struck down the federal right to abortion and triggered bans in some red states.

“I think it’s so disingenuous and deceiving of Mr. Bashaw to keep saying this” while still supporting the Dobbs decision, Kim said. “That is inherently not a pro-choice position.”

As to Israel, Kim said, “I would never treat Israel as a political tool and weapon for partisanship. These are very serious matters where people’s lives are on the line. I’ve been pressing to make sure hostages are released.”

The two have agreed to three debates, the first at 8 p.m. Oct. 6 at Rider University, which will be livestreamed.

At the iconic yellow-bricked Congress Hall, as his hotel guests sip mimosas and eat eggs Benedict on the veranda, Bashaw is balancing the chill vibe of Congress Hall with the frenetic schedule of politics.

“I’m going to vote for Donald Trump,” he said. He won’t say if his husband plans to do the same.

He’s flanked by the gravitas of a historic hotel purchased by his grandfather in 1968, which Bashaw saved from demise in 1995 and helped redefine Cape May into a sophisticated Jersey Shore destination.

Still, he’d like to put some distance between what a vote for Donald Trump means — the darkly fantastical picture of America currently being trafficked by Trump — and what a vote for Bashaw means.

He said he wants to secure the border, but rejects Trump and Vance’s inflammatory depictions of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. A third of his 1,000-person workforce are first- or second-generation immigrants to the United States, he says. Joe Biden was fairly elected, and Jan. 6 was “a terrible day.”

Of JD Vance’s talk about the relative worth of childless women, Bashaw said, “I think that’s an ignorant statement.”

“JD Vance was picked by Donald Trump to be on his ticket,” he said. “I’m running my race in New Jersey. Am I not supposed to run because they’re there? I’m running as Curtis Bashaw against Andy Kim.”

Bashaw grew up in Haddonfield, landing in Cape May because his grandfather, Carl McIntire, the fiery fundamentalist preacher from Collingswood, bought up properties after the 1962 storm, including Congress Hall and the former Admiral Hotel, which he renamed the Christian Admiral. Bashaw spent summers working as a busboy and a bellhop.

McIntire, a staunch anti-Communist, ultimately lost his FCC license to broadcast his Twentieth Century Reformation Hour, and instead set up a signal off the coast of Cape May, in international waters, from a ship he named Radio Free America.

The legacy of his grandfather would seem complicated for Bashaw, but he doesn’t portray it that way,

“He debated a gay minister back in 1976,” Bashaw said. “He told me, ‘Son, I think that’s not God’s path, but you have to work that out with God.’”

“When I came out in my 20s, I went to Philly, I went to New York, and there was a lot of political activism,” Bashaw said. “I realized in any advocacy group there’s some that become pretty intolerant and judgmental, whether it’s on the left or the right.”

It’s a middle ground Bashaw’s elevating to a campaign theme. (Kim counters that he won a district Trump won twice. “I live bipartisanship,” Kim said. “I don’t just talk about it like Mr. Bashaw.”)

On primary night, South Jersey Republicans puffed their chests that Bashaw beat a Trump-endorsed candidate from North Jersey, even though many of them, like State Sen. Michael Testa, Bashaw’s campaign chair, have been Trump enthusiasts. Testa served as Trump’s cochair in New Jersey in 2020.

Testa bonded with Bashaw during COVID, when Shore tourism and other officials pushed back against what they viewed as draconian lockdown measures coming from the governor. In 2020, Bashaw was appointed by Murphy to the tourism sector of a task force to help restart the state’s economy. “I felt useful,” Bashaw said.

Bashaw said his experience restoring Congress Hall, and his two years as executive director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (a position he was also appointed to by a Democratic governor), would serve him well in Washington, as both required navigating the morass of New Jersey regulations and politics.

“I’m a businessman who signed the front side of the paycheck every two weeks for 35 years,” he said. “Andy Kim has only gotten a government paycheck.” (Kim was a State Department foreign affairs adviser, including a period based in Afghanistan, before becoming a congressman).

Bashaw said the state’s retail politics has taught him people want to land in the middle.

”You meet people at these fairs, and some are Democrats, some are Republicans, but in their community safe zone, they’re kind of all from Sayreville. They’re loyal to Sayreville. Their kids are playing together on the soccer team.”