By Jonathan D. Salant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Bob Hugin claims to be "a different kind of Republican."

But when he opens his checkbook, he's just like every other big donor in the Grand Old Party.

He's given large contributions to President Donald Trump's campaign, to the Republican National Committee and to the political committees tied to GOP congressional leaders.

He continues to write those checks even after Trump and congressional Republicans push policies he says he opposes, such as cutting off funding for the Gateway Tunnel project under the Hudson River and capping the federal deduction for state and local taxes.

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Bob Hugin announces his candidacy for U.S. Senate. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

It's certainly to be expected that a big Republican donor would support his party. But Hugin has spent his Senate campaign emphasizing his differences with those he is supporting financially, and promising to cross party lines to get things done in Washington as he faces U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J..

Since 1989, Hugin and his wife Kathy have given around $1.9 million to federal candidates and committees, 98 percent of that to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group. That ranks them among the 600 biggest campaign contributors in the U.S.

"Bob Hugin has been independent his entire life and that won't change when he gets to Washington," spokesman Nick Iacovella said. "For decades, Bob and his wife Kathy have contributed to political candidates from both parties, to charities, and to nonprofits."

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Here are the candidates and committees that Hugin is writing campaign checks to.

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President Donald Trump shakes hands with Celgene CEO Bob Hugin during a meeting with pharmaceutical industry leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Donald Trump, $200,000

While he now emphasizes his differences with Trump, Hugin was a big financial backer of the president's campaign, giving $200,000 to his campaign and to the Republican National Committee in 2016.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks at the National Press Club on Oct. 8. (Tasos Katopodis | Getty Images)

Congressional Leadership Fund, $200,000

House Republicans in May 2017 achieved their long-sought goal of passing legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Their substitute, though, took aim at New Jersey and other states that had expanded Medicaid under the health care law, ending the extra federal funding they were receiving and instead using the money to cut taxes for wealthy Americans and corporations. That would have required New Jersey taxpayers to pay an extra $810 million to continue coverage.

Three months after that, in August, Hugin contributed $100,000 to the super political action committee aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the leader of the repeal effort.

The next month, Ryan and the rest of the House Republican leadership brought to the House floor an amendment to strip $900 million from a spending bill for the Gateway tunnel project. More than half the House GOP caucus voted yes but the effort to kill the allocation died in the face of near-unanimous Democratic opposition.

They also refused to give victims of Hurricane Sandy the same tax breaks they gave to those who suffered losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

Hugin also gave $100,000 to the super PAC in September 2016 as House Republicans successfully kept their majority. That was a year after they voted to take away $50 million from NJ Transit by ending a program to help New Jersey and other transit-intensive states. The Republican effort was blocked by the Senate.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan, $150,000

One of the first items of business in the 2017 congressional session was the passage of a budget resolution to allow Republicans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act without having to work with Democrats. The resolution prevented Senate Democrats from filibustering the legislation, allowing Republicans to pass a new health care bill without any buy-in from the other party.

The following month, Hugin gave $150,000 to a joint fundraising committee for Ryan's re-election campaign, his Prosperity Action leadership PAC and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

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Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel speaks during a news conference Oct. 1. (AP Photo | Chuck Burton)

Republican National Committee, $100,000

"Funding the Gateway Project will ensure the continued economic productivity of the New Jersey and New York City region," Hugin said in March. "We need to put ourselves above partisan politics and make sure this critical project gets the support it needs and deserves."

That's the same month Trump threatened to shut down the federal government rather than fund Gateway.

It's also the month that Hugin and his wife, Kathy, gave $100,000 to the Republican National Committee, which with a GOP president exists to support administration policies down the line.

The Trump-installed party chairwoman, Ronna Romney McDaniel, also has been a cheerleader for the Republican tax law, which studies continue to show disproportionately affected New Jersey.

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U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, at a Senate committee hearing. (Jim Bourg | Getty Images/Pool)

U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, $5,400

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, oversees health care issues, a major concern for Hugin and Celgene. Hugin contributed $5,400 to his campaign in January 2017.

Later that year, however, Hatch played an outsized role in drafting the Republican tax bill that curbed the federal deduction for state and local taxes, which also was under his committee's jurisdiction.

Hatch even voted to amend the congressional Republicans' budget resolution to exclude the deduction from the upcoming tax bill. And since the resolution prevented a Senate filibuster, Hatch and the other Republicans could write a partisan bill that targeted New Jersey and other high-tax states, most of them Democratic-run.

The final bill capped the deduction at $10,000. Studies have shown that New Jerseyans were the hardest hit by the measure.

Hugin has called for restoring the full deduction.

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In this April 16, 2014, file photo, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, and Celgene Corp. CEO Bob Hugin, left, participate in a groundbreaking ceremony at the pharmaceutical firm's headquarters in Summit. (AP Photo | Mel Evans)

Chris Christie, $257,700

Hugin was one of the biggest financial backers of then-Gov. Chris Christie's unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination, contributing $257,700 to his campaign, his leadership political action committee and his affiliated super PAC.

Former Christie aides have formed a super PAC to support Hugin's Senate campaign, Integrity NJ, which spent $3.7 million through Oct. 4, Federal Election Commission filings show.

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Susan Hutchison, the Republican challenger to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., takes part in a debate with her opponent. (AP Photo | Ted S. Warren)

This is the only GOP Senate candidate Hugin is backing this fall

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was rated the 13th most bipartisan Senate Democrat by the Lugar Center, presumably making her one of the lawmakers Hugin would want to reach out to as he promised to work across the political divide at the Capitol.

Instead, he and his wife have made Cantwell the only Senate Democrat they are trying to defeat.

Hugin and his wife Kathy gave a total of $10,800 on June 22 to Cantwell's opponent, Susan Hutchison.

A former Washington state Republican chairwoman, Hutchison has called Cantwell "a leader of the left-wing elite," labeled U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a "traitor" when he refused to endorse Trump during his speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention; and explained Trump's crude comments on the "Access Hollywood" tape about groping women by saying, "he was a Democrat at the time and he was channeling Bill Clinton."

While Hugin said he supported amending the Republican tax bill to restore the full federal deduction for state and local taxes, Hutchison said she wanted to make the law, and the deduction cap, permanent.

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U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez on Capitol Hill. (Ron Sachs | CNP/Zuma Press/TNS)

You won't believe who else Hugin supported

When Hugin ran Celgene, it made perfect sense to make a contribution to the New Jersey senator who sat on a Senate committee overseeing health issues. That was Menendez, and Hugin gave $4,800 for his 2012 re-election.

He also gave $16,000 to Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1st Dist, for his congressional campaigns. Norcross' brother is South Jersey powerbroker George Norcross.

And in June, Hugin contributed $2,500 to the campaign of his vanquished opponent in the Republican primary, Richard Pezzullo.

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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.