His poll numbers are terrible, he just went through a corruption trial that ended in a hung jury and there might be a retrial in the middle of his reelection campaign.

But it's difficult to find a New Jersey Republican willing to challenge Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez next year — a testament to the toxicity of Donald Trump in New Jersey and the dismal landscape facing the state’s Republican Party.


Gov. Chris Christie is leaving office after eight years with an approval rating in the mid-teens. He demanded absolute loyalty from members of the state’s Republican legislative delegation; they had to hitch their political wagons to him, and were allowed little breathing room to build their own profiles. Now, they’re paying the price — and only Richard Pezzullo, the runner-up in the New Jersey Republican 2014 U.S. Senate primary, is currently running for the GOP nomination next year.

And while Trump is more popular in New Jersey than Christie, polls have shown his approval in the high 20s to low 30s. He dominates the news cycle, and his immigration rhetoric gives Republicans more headaches in a state with one of the largest foreign-born populations in the country.

All this has created an environment where Menendez’s political favors for wealthy Florida eye doctor and convicted Medicare fraudster Salomon Melgen — allegedly in exchange for private jet flights, lavish vacations and campaign contributions — may not resonate as much as they otherwise would, even though one poll shows that 51 percent of voters say he shouldn’t be re-elected.

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“Republicans understand that Senator Menendez has built a strong record fighting for New Jersey in the face of Donald Trump and they see that their support for Trump is out of step with New Jersey’s values and voters,” wrote Menendez senior adviser Michael Soliman in an email. “Trump is essentially an insurmountable obstacle for any NJ Republican in 2018.”

Pezzullo says he’s puzzled by the lack of other candidates.

“I have been actively looking for that information. I’ve been circulating that same question,” Pezzullo said.

Menendez’s poll numbers dipped into the high 20s during his 2½ months on trial for corruption, before a hung jury left his career intact, for the moment, in November.

Still, Menendez has already wrapped up reelection support from virtually every major state Democrat. More broadly, Democrats have improved their voter registration advantage over Republicans. When Christie won his first term in 2009, New Jersey had 705,000 more Democrats than Republicans. On Election Day last month, when Democrat Phil Murphy won the governorship to replace the term-limited Christie in a landslide, Democrats increased that advantage to 880,000.

“Whenever we’re talking about what’s going on in the New Jersey Republican Party, we have to go back to Christie and the fact that no farm team has been developed,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray. “There’s no infrastructure to build a strong statewide presence. And Donald Trump is just the icing on the cake for making it difficult for Republicans to seriously this prospect.”

There are a few Republican names floating around as potential Menendez challengers.

Outgoing Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, one of the few Republicans who publicly opposed Christie on several issues, hasn’t dismissed the possibility — though he’s leaning against it.

“Do I believe I could beat Bob Menendez if he’s the candidate? Yes, I do. But at the same time, the notion of being away from my family five days a week isn’t all that appealing to me,” Ciattarelli said. He also acknowledged that Trump and the rightward shift in Republican politics have made it more difficult to field competitive Republican candidates in New Jersey.

“If you look at history, statewide Republican candidates and officeholders who have been the most successful have been moderate. And that includes Chris Christie. This is not an era, it seems, for [a] moderate Republican,” Ciattarelli said. “But that also speaks to why our brand is in shambles in New Jersey. We really need a custom-tailored Republican brand that helps us succeed here in New Jersey as a party.”

Another perennially mentioned name: John Crowley, a biotech executive whose creation of a company to find a treatment for his children’s rare disease inspired a Pulitzer Prize-winning book and a movie starring Harrison Ford. But Crowley has teased statewide candidacies twice before only to pull back, making Republicans less than optimistic about the prospect.

The GOP effort to find a Menendez challenger pales in comparison to the recruitment and fundraising bonanza Democrats are having in some of New Jersey’s GOP-held congressional districts. Six Democrats have registered with the Federal Election Commission to seek their party’s nomination against Republican U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance in Central Jersey’s 7th District, three of whom have raised six figures.

In North Jersey’s 11th District, at least five Democrats have registered for the primary to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. For 20 years, Frelinghuysen’s seat has been considered so safely Republican that Democrats had a hard time recruiting anyone to run against him.

“At this point, once we get past our off-year elections, there are usually some names at least floating in the ether,” Murray said. “But I think with the governor’s race and the shellacking that the Republicans took in the legislative races, coupled with the uncertainty of what was going to happen with Menendez and his trial, it just kept a lot of people on the sidelines.”

