![]() ![]() Hugin, who has pumped his own wealth into the campaign, has hammered Menendez with references to last year’s federal trial-Menendez was hit with 18 corruption charges-but that hasn’t trumped his own baggage. Hugin, mindful of the statewide polls, has been compelled to insist that he’s not a toady for Trump (“I’ve been independent my whole life”), which doesn’t square with his lavish praise of Trump, most notably on Fox News, where he called the president “constructive and engaged.” Menendez has duly taken advantage, airing TV ads that link his foe to the president (“To stop Trump, stop Hugin”). Trump has staged numerous rallies in the closing weeks of the midterm campaign, but it’s telling that none have been in swing Jersey districts. Trump has been a drag on Republicans campaigning for the House at least two of the GOP’s five New Jersey seats seem poised to go blue, and voters statewide, by double-digit margins, reportedly favor a Democratic Congress. Trump’s share of the Jersey vote in 2016 was 41 percent, and his summer approval rating was 33 percent. Menendez has lucked out because in New Jersey, the president’s baggage is far weightier than his. Even the Jersey editorial writers who have endorsed Menendez say that he’s “slippery” and “awful.”īut if Menendez survives election night, he should probably pen a thank-you note to Donald Trump-with perhaps a separate note to his Republican opponent, the pharmaceutical mogul Bob Hugin, who in 2016 raised money for Trump, donated $200,000 to Trump, and served as a convention delegate for Trump. Indeed, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report says that this race is a toss-up. They’ve long been reluctant to send Republicans to the Senate-that hasn’t happened since 1972-but if this were a normal year, they’d likely be tempted. Voters in the so-called Sopranos State aren’t totally numb regarding corruption in the latest poll conducted by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, only 28 percent of New Jerseyans view Menendez favorably. ![]() In a normal year, Menendez might well be doomed. But they’re stuck with Menendez, and in recent weeks their Senate PAC has been compelled to pump $6 million into the contest. The Senate map for Democrats is bad enough this year-their long-shot bid to capture the Senate next Tuesday hinges on defending and winning seats in southern and western red states-and the last thing they needed was a toss-up race in blue New Jersey. The downside for Democrats, however, is that they’re sweating his 2018 reelection bid. It would appear that Menendez has escaped more scrapes than Houdini. Thus far, the harshest verdict against Menendez has been rendered by the Senate Ethics Committee, which earlier this year “ severely admonished” him for his relationship with the affluent eye doctor. There were even rumors, on the eve of his 2012 reelection, that he had partied with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, but after conservative media outlets wrote dozens of stories, the FBI concluded that the rumors had no basis in fact. Menendez has never been found guilty of anything, and last year’s federal trial ended with a hung jury. Or perhaps it was in 2017, when he stood accused in federal court of helping Salomon Melgen, an affluent eye doctor, in exchange for gifts that were valued at nearly $1 million. Or perhaps it was in 2014, when the FBI suspected that he’d intervened on behalf of two accused Ecuadorian criminals in exchange for campaign donations. ![]() Perhaps it was in 2006, when federal prosecutors suspected that the New Jersey senator had steered federal funds to a nonprofit group that was paying him rent. It’s difficult to pinpoint when Bob Menendez’s name first became synonymous with ethical lapses. ![]()
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