NJ Senate race: Bob Menendez leads as Democrats hold their noses 'to save my democracy'

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Menendez supporters holding their nose Democrats in battleground districts remain ambivalent about Sen. Bob Menendez.

WILLINGBORO — A succession of speakers — a civil rights activist, a former Miss America from South Jersey, a state assemblywoman — seized the microphone outside Democrat Andy Kim's headquarters recently, firing up the crowd of canvassers with a rousing call to arms for Kim and others on the ticket.

But that partisan fervor did not extend to the name at the top of the Democratic ticket, Bob Menendez, the embattled U.S. senator who just a year earlier was sitting in a Newark courtroom fighting federal corruption charges.

No one uttered his name.

"I have to be honest: I haven’t really thought that much about that,'' said Kim, a House candidate for the 3rd Congressional District, when asked about Menendez shortly after the rally.

"I’m focused on this race from the beginning on terms of what I can control, what are the things I can influence," said Kim, a former national security adviser for President Barack Obama who is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Tom MacArthur, who is seeking a third term.

As the midterm contests come to a close, Democrats maintain a pragmatic ambivalence about Menendez, who is facing a fierce, well-financed challenge from Republican Bob Hugin, a former pharmaceutical executive who rarely misses a chance to revive Menendez's checkered past.

NJ SENATE RACE: In the age of Trump, Bob Hugin tries to win as a moderate Republican

MIDTERMS: Jay Webber, Mikie Sherrill and what we saw ahead of NJ midterm election 2018

DEMOCRAT: After corruption trial, Menendez's relationship with voters is complicated

REPUBLICAN: In the age of Trump, Hugin tries to win as a moderate Republican

Democratic voters in New Jersey's three battleground districts openly acknowledge that they are "holding their nose" for Menendez, meaning they will vote for him despite their misgivings.

To many, the alternative is worse. Voting for Hugin — or a decision to sit it out altogether — is tantamount to an endorsement of President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has shepherded Trump's conservative court nominees and tax cuts, with their unpopular cap on state and local deductions, through the Senate.

While Menendez may not be the ideal candidate from central casting — some Democrats still expressed dismay that Democratic leaders didn't select another candidate despite Menendez's surviving the corruption case — he still is viewed as a necessary check on Trump's excesses, even if the chances of a Democratic Party takeover of the Senate appear slim.

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Editorial board meeting with Mikie Sherrill Editorial board meeting with Mikie Sherrill

"From my perspective, I wish we had another option, but I’m staying Democrat,'' said Michael Wasnesky, a project manager in the telecommunications industry, after Kim canvassers knocked on the door of his Burlington County home. "I can’t stand what we got in the Senate, in Congress and in the White House right now.''

He added, "It's the cards that we’re dealt."

Others point to Menendez's reliable support for core Democratic Party priorities on health care, women's reproductive rights and labor issues. But others also view Trump and his congressional allies as an existential threat to the Democratic institutions.

"I’m not fighting to lower my taxes, I’m literally fighting for my democracy, to save my democracy,'' said Peg Rosen of Montclair, who writes the newsletter for NJ 11th For Change, a grass-roots group backing Democrat Mikie Sherrill in her campaign against Republican lawmaker Jay Webber for the Morris County-centric 11th Congressional district.

The "hold my nose" sentiment is largely reflected in the most recent round of polls, which show Menendez maintaining a slim lead despite his deep unpopularity with voters. But its also clear that Trump's own unpopularity in New Jersey is Menendez's gain — or lifesaver.

Among likely voters polled by Monmouth University, 56 percent said their views on Trump would be a more important factor in their vote, compared with 31 percent who cited their views on Menendez. And Menendez enjoys a 17-point advantage among women voters, who are largely disgusted with Trump's comments toward women, his support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and a sense that Trump has never been held accountable for his own history of sexual misconduct.

“If these poll results hold, the first person Bob Menendez should thank in his election night victory speech is Donald Trump,” said Patrick Murray, the Monmouth University pollster.

Rank-and-file Democrats, meanwhile, hold no such ambivalence about Kim, Sherrill and Tom Malinowski, a former State Department official who holds a slight lead over Republican Leonard Lance in the 7th District, which stretches from the affluent Union County suburbs to the Delaware River in Warren County.

Voters are fired up, in part, by the realistic prospect of a Democratic takeover of the House, and they view the three New Jersey districts as pivotal in that effort. Yet some voters still struggle to reconcile their enthusiasm for the House candidates with Menendez.

Ralph Hendrickson, a retired elementary school principal from Westhampton, said he's backing Menendez because of his positions on health care.

"But anytime in this day and age where there is some concerned about corruption, one pauses,'' Hendrickson said before Kim's campaign rally. "And the fact that someone has to pause and think about that in this day and age is troubling and a disappointment. For Andy, its a different story."

That misgiving is rooted in the campaign of Hugin, who has stoked unease with a blistering barrage of negative television ads over the summer that attacked Menendez as corrupt and a "disgrace."

It has helped keep the contest competitive, despite the Democratic Party registration advantage of nearly 900,000 voters and Donald Trump's deep unpopularity statewide.

Hugin's ad blitz drew heavily from Menendez's trial last year on federal corruption charges. Prosecutors accused Menendez of accepting bribes in the forms of free air travel, stays at posh hotels and campaign cash. In turn, Menendez put his office at the service of Melgen's personal and business interests.

The trial ended with a hung jury, and federal prosecutors decided not to retry Menendez after the trial judge dismissed some of the most explosive charges. The Senate Ethics Committee "severely admonished" Menendez and ordered him to repay the gifts.

Menendez's campaign spokesman Steve Sandberg acknowledged that Hugin's ad blitz has harmed the senator's standing with voters. "It has an impact. No one is discounting that. No one is naïve about that,'' he said.

But Sandberg dismissed suggestions that Democrats are grudgingly making a lesser-of-two-evils choice for Menendez.

"The senator is putting himself out there and asking the voters to judge him on the totality of who he is, his record and what he has done for the state. I think, at the end of the day ... the sentiment you’re getting [is] that people are willing to ... see and recognize everything he has done in a 40-year career in public service,'' he said.

Hugin plunged the advertising assault to a new low earlier this month, with an ad that revived old and widely debunked charges that Menendez had engaged in trysts with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. Those charges, floated by a tipster near the end of Menendez's 2012 campaign and investigated by the FBI, were never substantiated.

Menendez aggressively pushed back last week with his own ad and repeatedly cited fact checkers, including the Washington Post, that debunked the Hugin ad's claims. Yet some worried that the ad succeeded in stirring up ambivalence and doubts among voters who haven't tuned in to the race.

“The fact that it’s a lie — its still out there,'' said Bergen County Democratic chairman Lou Stellato. "So how do you undo it? It’s very difficult."

Republican House candidates have also latched onto Hugin's underage prostitutes charge, demanding that their Democratic foes disown Menendez.

Lance's campaign, for example, has also tried to force Malinowski to take sides. Does Malinowski "believe Bob Menendez or does he believe federal law enforcement?"

Lance's campaign noted that these "shocking and new revelations" (they first surfaced six years ago) had been found "credible" by the Justice Department. So, Lance's campaign argued, does Malinowski "believe Bob Menendez, or does he believe federal law enforcement?"

It's worth noting that no charges were brought, and while the FBI said it found corroboration for some things the tipster said, it found no corroboration that the senator slept with prostitutes of any age.

Malinowski dismissed Lance's attempt to link him to Menendez after a town hall Sunday in a bar in Long Valley, a hamlet in the western section of Morris County.

It’s very simple. You can’t stand with Nancy Pelosi on policy, Bob Menendez on ethics, and with the people of #NJ11. pic.twitter.com/hHq7VENmSq — Jay Webber (@JayWebberNJ) October 17, 2018

"If Leonard Lance wants to stand with the FBI, he needs to talk to the House Republican leadership that has spent the last two years persecuting the FBI,'' Malinowski said, referring to House Republican attacks on FBI investigations of Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails, among others.

For over an hour, Malinowski fielded questions from a packed audience on subjects such as term-limiting Supreme Court nominees and was quizzed by a young visitor about his knowledge of Harry Potter lore. Menendez never came up.

Asked if he planned to campaign with Menendez in the homestretch, Malinowski said, "We have made appearances together. He hasn't been here very much. I've been very busy with my campaign, and it is just not coming up as a factor."

In Kim's race against MacArthur, canvassers have been armed with talking points just in case it does come up. The script doesn't instruct them to defend Menendez but to turn the tables on Hugin by portraying him as a Big Pharma profiteer who made millions by raising prices on cancer drugs — a central Menendez campaign attack line.

Back at Kim's headquarters, a former bank branch office, campaign aides prepped volunteers on the basics of canvassing. Behind them was the bank's old vault, which they use as a supply closet. It was there that the most determined of volunteers discovered campaign lawn signs for Menendez.

Melissa Fleming of Marlton was eager to grab some, telling a friend that she was worried about seeing so many Hugin signs throughout the district, yet few for Menendez. She walked out of the vault with about half-dozen. Another volunteer also grabbed a couple.

"I do believe in Bob, and his track record really speaks for itself,'' Fleming said. But as she clutched the signs, she added a caveat.

"Should they find out that something is proven, then he needs to step aside. I don't believe that. I haven't seen any evidence of that yet."