There was a time when the governor didn’t want me in this race. But the State Democrats have now given us a staffer and are running a poll for us.

The first television ad that Mr. Collins aired highlighted your fluency in Korean and suggested that you would move jobs overseas. What do you think he was trying to achieve?

Well, there were fake subtitles and scary music. He was trying to inflame some of the worst sentiments in our country today about foreigners. He was using xenophobia to make people think that I am not of here and not like them, when the reality is that I am a son of this region and so are my kids, who are of Korean heritage.

But I think the ad backfired. There are so many people who have come up to me and apologized for that ad, people from all walks of life.

Would you have preferred to run against a replacement candidate who was perhaps more obscure?

It doesn’t hurt to have your guy out on bail and declared a flight risk. Running against an opponent who is out on bail is definitely a positive. The negative is that he is one of the richest members of Congress. I don’t think it’s all bad for him because no matter what, he is an incumbent with a major infrastructure and political machine behind him.

How are you honing your message to win over unaffiliated voters and moderate Republicans?

We have to get on television, and thankfully we raised enough money to do that. And we are going to be on television for the next five weeks. We are strong believers in our ground game and all the contacts we have made. We believe that will pay off.