Bob Menendez fires back after Republican Bob Hugin launches nasty "prostitute" ad in Senate fight.

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption 2018 NJ Senate election: Drug prices drive health care debate Sen. Bob Menendez is trying to make Republican opponent Bob Hugin's career at drugmaker Celgene one of the focal points as they compete for US Senate

Democrat Bob Menendez's single-digit lead in the U.S. Senate race is largely owed to #MeToo-inspired women voters, who are disgusted at the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

That explains why Republican Bob Hugin is recycling 6-year-old — and widely debunked — accusations that Menendez had traveled to the Dominican Republic to engage in trysts with underage prostitutes.

The charges are the subject of a blistering, 60-second television ad that blitzed the airwaves last weekend. It's an attempt to peel away some of that support from women by stoking ambivalence and disgust about Menendez.

Protecting that treasured support also explains why Menendez fired back Wednesday, accusing Hugin of being a liar and misogynist. And he called him a "slimeball," for good measure.

A civil League of Women Voters debate this is not.

"Bob Hugin is down in the polls, wrong on the issues, and he is desperate to distract the people of New Jersey from his own shameful record,'' Menendez said at a news conference Wednesday in Hackensack, where he was flanked by about a dozen women supporters.

He also unveiled his own ad accusing Hugin of being a liar.

The ferocity of the attacks with 20 days left before the midterm elections illustrated the high stakes of these elections.

MORE: Is NJ's Senate race too close for comfort? Democrats spending $3 million to help Menendez

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Analysts say Democrats have a strong chance to retake the House from the Republicans for the first time in a decade. And some Democrats believe majority control of the Senate is also within reach, although most handicappers say its a long shot at this point.

But a Menendez loss would certainly doom a Democratic Senate takeover, and it would be a stunning, embarrassing setback for national Democrats, who had viewed New Jersey as a solidly blue, safe redoubt where a Republican hasn't been elected to the Senate in 46 years.

New Jersey's Democratic pedigree — and nearly 900,000 advantage in voter registration — was supposed to carry Menendez to victory. Democratic leaders had not planned to spend significant resources in New Jersey. But in a sign of intra-party nervousness about Menendez, a Democratic super PAC said Tuesday that it's pouring $3 million into TV ads to help Menendez.

Yet the baggage of last year's federal corruption trial has been a source of constant television attacks by Hugin, who has lent himself $24 million for the race. Menendez was charged with accepting bribes in the form of luxury travel and campaign contributions from a friend and donor, Salomon Melgen, a prominent Florida eye doctor. The government charged that in exchange, Menendez used his office to promote Melgen's personal and business interests.

A trial ended in a hung jury, and the government chose not to retry Menendez after the judge threw out most of the serious charges. But the Senate later "severely admonished" hiim for accepting the gifts and ordered him to repay Melgen.

Hugin's attacks — pounding Menendez as corrupt and a "disgrace" — have kept the race closer than expected. A Quinnipiac University poll Wednesday had Menendez leading Hugin 51 percent to 44 percent among likely voters, with five percent still undecided. Hugin gained a net four points from a Quinnipiac poll taken earlier this month.

The poll also pointed to a consistent pattern in the race. Menendez is not personally popular with voters — only 36 percent view him favorably, compared with 52 percent who view him unfavorably.

Yet women remain Menendez's bulwark of support, with 56 percent supporting him compared with 38 percent for Hugin. (Men are divided, with 51 percent for Hugin and 46 for Menendez.)

"Support from women remains key to Sen. Robert Menendez's standing in this race as his favorability rating is stuck deep underwater," said Mary Snow, a polling analyst for Quinnipiac.

That may explain Hugin's where's-there's-smoke-there's-fire ad that reprises charges that he consorted with prostitutes, some underage, at Melgen's Dominican resort. The charge first surfaced at the end of Menendez's 2012 Senate race.

The allegations of Menendez engaging with underage prostitutes came via an anonymous tipster who sent emails to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and later to the FBI. The allegations circulated in the closing days of his 2012 race.

No charges were brought, and while the FBI said it found corroboration for some things the tipster said, it found no corroboration for the senator sleeping with prostitutes of any age.

Separately, two women who made prostitution allegations published by a conservative website just before Menendez's 2012 re-election recanted and said they were paid to lie. Court documents do not indicate those women were part of the FBI's investigation. Fact-checkers at several national news outlets found no evidence to substantiate the charges.

The Washington Post's fact-checkers Wednesday gave the ad "four Pinocchios" — the worst rating it gives.

"Bob Hugin has stooped so low that it might have been directed by Donald Trump himself,'' Menendez said.

It was a theme that Menendez and his allies returned to repeatedly during their news conference. Hugin, who is casting himself as an independent-minded Republican, is resorting to the Trump playbook of regurgitating falsehoods as facts.

"Bob Hugin isn’t a different kind of Republican. He is proving to be an 'Apprentice,' " said Elizabeth Meyers, founder of the New Jersey Women's March, referring to the title of Trump's former reality television show.

Others argued why Hugin, who contributed to Trump's campaign and served as a Trump delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention, would attack Menendez based on debunked claims while refusing to disavow Trump, who was accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct.

Megan Piwowar, a Hugin campaign spokeswoman, defended Hugin's hard-hitting ad, claiming that it relies on "very specific allegations" and that it reminds voters "exactly what kind of person they have in Bob Menendez."

Some observers say Hugin is taking a gamble and that it could backfire if voters see it as outlandish and desperate.

And Brigid Harrison, a political science and law professor at Montclair State University, also doubts that it will change the minds of most women voters. Trump's rhetoric toward women and the bitter fight over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed despite being accused of sexual assault, have made many women voters realize the importance of a Democratic check on the Trump agenda in Congress, she said.

"My inclination is that women voters, especially Democrats, independents and even Republican women have reached a kind of watershed moment,'' Harrison said.