saying only that<\/a> Menendez is a \u201cdedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey\u201d who \u201chas a right to due process and a fair trial.\u201d The White House said much the same on Monday.<\/p>\nMost immediately, Menendez\u2019s indictment is a big headache for Democrats in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
In a little over a month, all 120 seats in the New Jersey Legislature are up. And Democrats, who hold a 25-15 majority in the state Senate and a 46-34 majority in the General Assembly, were already having a rough year before the Menendez news broke, struggling to counter Republican attacks on school policies regarding transgender kids and pushback to offshore wind projects.<\/p>\n
Republicans are already trying to monopolize on the indictment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s representative of the sleaze that\u2019s out there, and voters are going to take that into account,\u201d said New Jersey Republican State Chairman Bob Hugin, who was the unsuccessful GOP nominee against Menendez in 2018.<\/p>\n
Menendez was indicted on corruption charges in 2015, beat them through a mistrial in 2017, and went on to beat Hugin by 11 points in an anti-Trump wave. That gave the senator the aura of New Jersey\u2019s ultimate political survivor.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s now convinced of his own staying power. At a press conference Monday, Menendez refused to resign and claimed he was, yet again, being wrongly accused \u2014 dismissing allegations he took bribes in the form of gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz. The senator did not say whether he would seek reelection, nor did he rule it out.<\/p>\n
Should Menendez choose to run, his prospects can\u2019t be immediately dismissed. As of June 30, he had nearly $8 million sitting in his campaign account.<\/p>\n
Still, he would face long odds.<\/p>\n
The charges Menendez beat before the 2018 election were a lot harder for the public to digest than the ones he now faces, and they will almost certainly not be resolved ahead of November 2024. That\u2019s part of the reason why most of the state\u2019s Democratic Party apparatus, which backed Menendez during his previous legal woes, on Friday afternoon called on him to resign.<\/p>\n
New Jersey has a unique ballot design in most of its 21 counties in which candidates are awarded \u201cthe line\u201d in the primary \u2014 favorable ballot placement that brackets a party-backed candidate with all the others who have received party endorsement, from the top of the ballot to the bottom. With most Democratic county chairs calling on Menendez to resign, he\u2019s unlikely to get the top ballot spot in most if not all counties.<\/p>\n
Even in 2018, when Menendez had state Democrats firmly behind him, his sole primary challenger, the unfunded and largely unknown Lisa McCormick, won 38 percent of the vote against him. That was widely read as a protest vote by primary voters, and doesn\u2019t bode well for a Menendez run in 2024 with none of the advantages he enjoyed six years prior.<\/p>\n
Now, leading state Democrats \u2014 from Gov. Phil Murphy on down \u2014 are calling on the senator to step aside. And Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey and a close ally, has said nothing publicly despite being one of the first to defend Menendez after his last indictment.<\/p>\n
Notably, no major elected officials stood behind Menendez on Monday when he made his first public appearance since Friday\u2019s indictment.<\/p>\n
There are some Democrats \u2014 especially in Menendez\u2019s home base of Hudson County \u2014 who won\u2019t count him out. Hudson County Democratic Chair Anthony Vainieri has not called on the senator to resign and told POLITICO on Saturday that the senator is \u201clike a rock star\u201d to residents there.<\/p>\n
But Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Hudson County Democrat who\u2019s running for governor in 2025, was dismissive of Vainieri\u2019s comments. He doubts the senator\u2019s native county will be behind him once it comes time to award county lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what he was trying to say was that, in the community that he came from, people still admire him. It doesn\u2019t mean that the political world respects him,\u201d Fulop, who has a historically tense relationship with Menendez, said in an interview. \u201cI don\u2019t see any electoral chance of [Menendez] being successful. And, truthfully, I don\u2019t think he sees it out through the primary.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Menendez still could be a problem for the party, Fulop said, threatening the chances of state Democrats this year. State-level elections without the governor on the ballot are low-turnout affairs where only the most committed voters cast a ballot. And now, one of New Jersey\u2019s most high-profile politicians \u2014 and its most senior statewide elected official \u2014 is getting massive media attention for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting so much traction. There\u2019s an army of the press corps in Union City,\u201d Fulop said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re paying attention to core Democratic and Republican voters who would vote in an off cycle like this and would be mad about a specific issue amplified on social media,” he said. “Now, a month away from the election, you\u2019re touching voters who aren\u2019t necessarily engaged in the political process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that do to them? Does it make them want to engage?\u201d<\/p>\n