2018 NJ Senate: In battle with Bob Hugin, Bob Menendez may get help from House contests

Herb Jackson | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Watch: NJ House Democrats react to Menendez reelection question Republican Leonard Lance (right) won't be on the ballot next to Sen. Bob Menendez, but here's how (left to right) Democratic NJ Reps. Frank Pallone, Bill Pascrell, Josh Gottheimer, Donald Norcross, and Bonnie Watson Coleman reacted when asked about it April 27, 2018.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bob Menendez is used to spending far more than his opponents in elections, but this year — as Menendez is trying to recover from corruption charges that ended with him being "admonished" by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee — millionaire Republican challenger Bob Hugin has already outspent him by more than $5 million.

Yet Democratic leaders in New Jersey and in Washington are not panicking. Handicappers still see Menendez as the favorite. And while a Quinnipiac University poll this week showed that Menendez's lead dropped to 6 percentage points from 17 in March, Hugin had the same amount of support, 37 percent, as Sen. Cory Booker's Republican challenger in August 2014 and that challenger finished with 42 percent.

Menendez clearly has problems. Fellow Democrats sent him a message in the June primary, when an unknown opponent got 38 percent of the vote.

Quinnipiac found that 47 percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of him, compared with 27 percent for Booker in 2014. Despite being acquitted by a judge of the most serious bribery charges after his trial ended in a hung jury that was leaning 10-2 in favor of acquittal, 49 percent of voters believe Menendez was involved in serious wrongdoing.

So why aren't more Democrats worried? A big reason why is President Donald Trump, whose disapproval rating in the poll was 63 percent among registered voters.

And the Senate seat is not the only contest that will be decided in November. New Jersey has seen a surge of interest in House races, with Democrats favored to win two of the five Republican-held House seats and two others rated as toss-ups.

"The thing that helps Menendez, frankly, is all those competitive House races," said Jennifer Duffy, senate editor at the Cook Political Report, which handicaps elections. "There's something on the ballot to get voters to the polls. I think if there weren't anything else out there, Menendez would have to worry about complacency."

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Duffy said Washington Democrats are watching the Menendez race and "have their fingers crossed that they never have to spend a dime there." The Cook report and the University of Virginia's Crystal Ball both rate New Jersey "likely D." Inside Elections handicaps the race as "solid Democratic."

"Any time someone is spending millions of dollars against you, you'd better pay attention," said Nathan Gonzales, editor of Inside Elections, "And the senator's favorability rating is not good. But he has the fortune of running for re-election in [a] Democratic-leaning state in a Democratic-leaning year."

Battleground for House control

Three Republican-held New Jersey districts — the 3rd, in Burlington and Ocean counties, the 7th, stretching from Hunterdon County to Union County along the I-78 corridor, and the 11th, covering parts of Essex, Morris, Passaic and Sussex counties — were among 25 "Districts That Could Decide the House in 2018" chosen Friday by the website FiveThirtyEight.

Democratic challengers in those districts have each raised more than $2 million, and one of them, Mikie Sherrill in the 11th District, raised more than Menendez did in the second quarter of this year. Super PACs and political party committees have also started to spend money in these districts, further increasing the likelihood of high turnout as voters learn there's a real contest.

The reverse coattails theory is that the competitive races pull out voters looking to send a message to Republicans in places where Republicans usually pile up big pluralities in statewide races, such as Morris and Hunterdon counties.

But that can also backfire if voters are turned off by Menendez at the top of the ticket. The recent indictment of Republican Reps. Chris Collins of New York and Duncan Hunter of California, combined with the conviction and guilty plea of Trump allies Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, has some Democrats saying that battling corruption will be a top theme of the fall campaign.

Corruption a campaign theme

Menendez said he was not sure that would be a theme, but if it is, he does not see it as a problem for him.

"There’s a difference between being exonerated by a federal judge, a jury that rejected the government’s charges, and having a Republican Department of Justice drop their charges, fundamentally different," Menendez said.

Sen. Cory Booker, who has been traveling the country to help fellow Democrats in battleground states, said he was impressed by Menendez's "work ethic" as they spent several days recently at events across the state.

"With no disrespect to my other senators who might be in tough states, like Manchin and Heitkamp and Donnelly, my No. 1 priority is my senior senator," Booker said.

Asked if Menendez could be a drag on House candidates, Booker said: "I think in the end they will be symbiotically helping each other."

With less money than Hugin — fundraising efforts in the past three years were more focused on his legal defense fund, which took in $5.2 million — Menendez waited until this week to start airing his own commercials, even though Hugin had been on the air attacking him since the spring.

Independent super PACs on both sides have also been advertising.

"We have 90 days to go, and that’s really a lifetime," Lou Stellato, Bergen County Democratic chairman, said last week. "Hugin spent a lot of money, and Menendez hasn't even started yet. So with all of those things, his numbers are still fairly good in places where they need to be."

Differences from 2002

Sixteen years ago, another Democratic senator battling a millionaire Republican was admonished by the ethics committee, and party leaders concerned about New Jersey costing Democrats a majority in the Senate convinced Sen. Bob Torricelli to drop out of the race.

Things are different now, Democratic officials say.

Torricelli's admonishment came in July 2002, whereas Menendez's came in February. The sanction of Menendez also came after an 11-week trial that ended in a hung jury, a judge acquitting him on the most serious bribery charges, and then the Justice Department in the Trump administration dropping the case.

"The Torricelli thing was front and center in the campaign; it was being featured on NBC network news," said former state Sen. Ray Lesniak, a top adviser to Gov. Jim McGreevey at the time Democrats switched candidates.

"The Menendez stuff is in the past, and the only way it could be brought up is in political ads, which have much less impact and credibility than an NBC national TV exposé," Lesniak said.

Lesniak also said there is much more "intense dislike" of Trump in New Jersey than there was of President George W. Bush in 2002.

Grass-roots unity

Concerns about electing a Republican who could vote for parts of Trump's agenda in Washington led a coalition of liberal grass-roots groups to issue a joint statement July 19 saying there was a "need to unite behind Bob Menendez."

"They're more focused on health care and women's rights and the Supreme Court than anything that happened in the past," said Analilia Mejia, director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, who helped organize the effort to issue a joint statement.

“We also walked away from 2016 understanding that taking any vote or any election for granted is to our own peril,” she said.