Menendez, free of charges, will seek another Senate term

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, just a few months after surviving a federal corruption trial that threatened to land him behind bars, is scheduled to announce Wednesday that he will seek another six-year term.

The New Jersey Democrat, 64, will kick off his campaign in Union City, his hometown, at an event attended by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Gov. Phil Murphy and other “prominent New Jersey Democrats,” according to an advisory from his campaign.

Menendez’s main opponent come November will likely be the well-funded Republican Bob Hugin, a Marine Corp veteran and former pharmaceutical executive who, like Menendez, ascended to great success from humble beginnings in Union City.

POLITICAL HEADWINDS: Anti-Trump wave is Republican Hugin's biggest hurdle in U.S. Senate race

DEFENSE HELP: These are the top contributors who helped keep Menendez out of prison

Hugin, 63, launched his campaign last month by saying he was “embarrassed” by Menendez’s conduct and urging voters to hold the senator accountable. His campaign continued that line of attack Tuesday.

“This campaign will come down to the story of two Bobs,” Megan Piwowar, Hugin’s communications director, said in a statement. “We’re confident that New Jersey voters will say enough with Menendez’s failed, corrupt track record, and elect a senator we can be proud of again.”

Menendez’s campaign shot back by calling Hugin “a greedy CEO who became a multi-millionaire by jacking up prices again and again on medicine that cancer patients depend upon.”

“He led a company that avoided paying taxes in America by parking billions overseas,” Menendez advisor Michael Soliman said in a statement. “It’s no wonder patient advocates call Bob Hugin ruthless and a robber baron.”

Menendez spent 11 weeks last year battling charges that he traded political favors for luxury vacations, flights on private jets and $600,000 in political donations from Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida eye doctor and longtime friend. The trial ended in a hung jury, and prosecutors decided to drop the case in January.

Menendez is now free of the charges, although he still faces a Senate ethics probe into his conduct. Melgen was sentenced last month to 17 years in prison for Medicare fraud in a separate case.

Voters soured on Menendez during the trial, but the popularity of the 12-year incumbent has improved in recent months, and he has reclaimed his position as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Perhaps more than anything else, his candidacy will be buoyed by the unpopularity of President Donald Trump in New Jersey.

Although more than a third of New Jersey voters think Menendez was involved in “serious wrongdoing,” according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, Trump has a lackluster 32 percent approval rating in the deeply blue state.

The poll gives Menendez — a reliable opponent in the Senate to Trump’s judicial nominees and conservative domestic policies — a 17-point lead over Hugin, who pumped $100,000 into a Trump-aligned Super PAC during the 2016 election and served as a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

Hugin has also faced questions about controversies involving his former company, Celgene, which reportedly increased the prices of cancer medications in 2017, when Hugin was chairman of the company’s board of directors, and agreed to pay $280 million last year to settle a lawsuit alleging it committed fraud promoting two cancer drugs for unapproved purposes.

Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, sought to keep the attention on Menendez in a statement issued Tuesday.

“A federal jury was unable to come to a decision on disgraced Sen. Bob Menendez’s corruption case, but New Jersey voters will have the final word,” Salera said. “Menendez has embarrassed New Jersey for too long, and Garden State voters will send him packing on Dr. Melgen’s jet this November.”

Email: pugliese@northjersey.com