NJ Senate race: Bob Hugin ads back immigration and call Bob Menendez attack a 'cheap shot'

Herb Jackson | 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

In a pair of new TV ads released Wednesday, Republican U.S. Senate challenger Bob Hugin promises to work for “compassionate immigration reform” and brands an attack from Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez “a cheap shot” while making an attack of his own.

The commercials are the latest from the millionaire former chief executive of Celgene Corp., whose own money accounted for $15.5 million of the $16.7 million his campaign received through June 30.

Though Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey since 1972, this year's campaign is more competitive because of Hugin's personal wealth and Menendez's recent trial on corruption charges, which ended in a partial acquittal by the judge, the government dropping the rest of the case, and then a letter of admonishment by the Senate's ethics committee.

As in earlier ads, Hugin's new commercials mix attacks on Menendez’s ethics with promises that separate Hugin from most other Republicans in contests around the country.

"It was in the Marine Corps that I learned leaders go where the problems are," Hugin says in one spot. "Health care needs a radical transformation. We need compassionate immigration reform. Fix DACA."

DACA is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program President Barack Obama created by executive order that prevented the deportation of so-called "Dreamers," undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

President Donald Trump rescinded the Obama order, making those who had registered for protected status subject to deportation again. In February, 16 senators, including Menendez, reached a bipartisan agreement on how to extend it, but that plan and one supported by Trump both failed as the White House lobbied senators to take their names off the compromise.

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"Bob's objective is providing a path to citizenship for Dreamers and other law-abiding people that are working hard to build productive and constructive lives in America," Hugin spokeswoman Megan Piwowar said. "Bob Hugin will fix the problem by working with people on both sides of the aisle."

Critics have denounced as "amnesty" any plan that does not call for deporting people who do not have legal status, so Hugin's support for a "path to citizenship" is a step many in his party would not make. His campaign stressed that he also supports strong border security and opposes so-called "sanctuary cities," where local police, to varying degrees, choose not to share information with immigration authorities about people arrested.

Menendez's campaign has portrayed Hugin as a greedy phamaceutical executive who got rich raising the price of drugs needed by cancer patients to stay alive. Hugin's second new ad says an unspecified Menendez attack was called "wildly unfair" and "a cheap shot" by the Star-Ledger.

The date that appears on screen under those quotes refers to a column that said it was unfair to say pressure from Russian President Vladimir Putin led Hugin to lower the price of a cancer drug in Russia while raising it in the United States. The same column said the attack missed a "riper target" and that "there are grounds for serious and legitimate criticism of Hugin's performance as CEO of Celgene."

The Hugin ad also says Menendez took "nearly a million dollars from big pharma, a reference to the $947,915 that Menendez got from the drug industry during his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. It does not mention, however, that Menendez was the third-highest recipient of contributions from Celegne employees during his 2012 campaign.

Menendez campaign spokesman Steve Sandberg said it was "absurd" to expect Hugin to work on the public's behalf after giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to support Trump and former Gov. Chris Christie. He also mocked the ad's attack on Menendez's role in supporting higher drug costs.

"The only thing Bob Hugin puts first is himself," Sandberg said. "Hugin spent millions lobbying against the very bill that Senator Menendez supports to make drugs cheaper."