Under normal circumstances, Sen. Bob Menendez would be expected to skate to reelection. | Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images Menendez to county chairs on reelection: Don’t worry, I’ve got this

Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey called the state’s Democratic county chairs into a hotel in East Brunswick on Tuesday to give them a message: Don’t worry, we have a plan.

Menendez, a Democrat who just last year survived a federal corruption trial, has for months faced a barrage of television ads from Republican Senate nominee Bob Hugin, a millionaire former pharmaceutical executive who so far has put $15.5 million of his own money into his campaign.


With the exception of a new super PAC that’s slamming Hugin for raising drug prices, those attacks have gone unanswered on the airwaves. And some New Jersey Democratic leaders are getting nervous.

“I was not worried,” said Somerset County Democratic Chairwoman Peg Schaffer, “but I think there were some people who were.”

Menendez sought to allay that fear by addressing the county chairs himself, outlining the state of the race and why he’s confident in his reelection — a speech that seemed to soothe some nerves, according to those present.

“I think it was designed to create a comfort level about why they haven’t been responding to Hugin so far,” Schaffer said. “They talked about their campaign plans. I’m not going to reveal them, but they’ll come out in due time.”

From his campaign launch in February until the end of June, the Hugin campaign has spent $8.6 million. The Menendez campaign in the first six months of 2018 spent less than $800,000. Hugin as of July 1 had $8.1 million in the bank to Menendez’s $6.4 million.

According to two sources who attended the meeting but requested anonymity while recounting conversations that were intended to be confidential, pollster Joel Benenson and consultant Steve DeMicco also addressed the group.

Benenson explained the Menendez campaign internal polling — which sources present wouldn’t share — and explained how he plans to use his resources in the coming months. And the pair explained how the campaign plans to use Hugin’s record as the top executive at the pharmaceutical giant Celgene when it hiked the price of a cancer drug and paid a $280 million settlement to settle fraudulent marketing allegations.

“The meeting itself was useful and very productive,” said Middlesex County Democratic Chairman Kevin McCabe. “I walked out of the meeting feeling very encouraged about the plan being put forth for the reelection of Sen. Menendez.”

The meeting was first reported by the website InsiderNJ.

A spokesman for the Menendez campaign did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Under normal circumstances, Menendez would be expected to skate to reelection. New Jersey has over 900,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, and anti-Trump feelings are strong among the state’s electorate.

But over the years, polls have shown that the senator’s approval rating dips into the negatives when his ethics woes hit the news — whether it‘s his 2015 indictment, his 2017 trial that ended in a hung jury or his 2018 admonishment by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.

There has been little public polling of the race so far. Two polls from early this year — from Quinnipiac University and Monmouth University — showed Menendez leading Hugin by double digits. But a May poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University showed the two just 4 points apart, although the poll had different methodology that did not take into consideration which way voters leaned. A Gravis poll last month showed Menendez leading by just 2 points, but the poll’s results showed President Donald Trump with a positive 47 percent to 37 percent approval rating in New Jersey. That contradicted every other public poll on the president’s approval, causing many observers to dismiss it, along with the fact that the poll was released exclusively to the right-wing website Breitbart.