TRENTON — Approval ratings for Sen. Robert Menendez — buffeted by scandal over his relationship with a major campaign contributor — have plummeted in the past month, according to a poll released today.

A Quinnipiac poll found that 36 percent of voters approved of the job Menendez was doing and 41 percent disapproved, a drop of 15 points from last month.

A spate of news articles have appeared over the past several weeks describing Menendez’s relationship with the donor, Salomon Melgen, a wealthy South Florida eye doctor whose offices were recently raided by FBI agents, and disclosing that the senator had pressed federal agencies on behalf of the doctor.

In January, 51 percent approved of the job the New Jersey Democrat was doing, while 33 percent disapproved.

What's more, only 28 percent of respondents said Menendez was “honest and trustworthy,” while 44 percent said he was not.

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“U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez took an overseas trip and the poll numbers he left behind in New Jersey are dreadful – down 15 points in less than a month,” Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said. “So much for a re-election honeymoon.”

Menendez, who easily won re-election to a second full term last November and recently assumed the prestigious post of chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, is currently in Afghanistan, where he met with President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday.

After news articles appeared suggesting Melgen flew Menendez to the Dominican Republic on his private jet, the senator acknowledged failing to disclose two of the flights in 2010. Last month, he reimbursed Melgen $58,500 for them after a New Jersey Republican asked the Senate ethics committee to look into Menendez's travels.

In addition, the FBI has reportedly been unable to substantiate allegations made by an anonymous tipster and published on a conservative website that Melgen provided Menendez with prostitutes , some perhaps underage, at an exclusive oceanfront resort in the Dominican Republic.

According to the poll, 70 percent of the respondents have read or heard something about Menendez's difficulties. Of those, 59 percent said it made them feel less favorably toward Menendez, while 35 percent said it didn't change their opinion. But 67 percent of the surveyed said the issues raised should be investigated, while 53 percent said they were not satisfied with how Menendez had handled the matter.

“The more they know, the less they approve,” Carroll said.

The Quinnipiac poll presented a much different picture than a Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll last week that found the scandal had not affected Menendez’s approval rating. But Patrick Murray, the director of that poll, had cautioned that although most New Jerseyans had heard something about the issues, they did not know much about it. And he noted that those who had paid closer attention to the scandal viewed Menendez less favorably.

The Quinnipiac poll also found that 48 percent approved of the performance of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the veteran Democrat who announced last week he would retire in 2015, while 32 percent said they disapproved .

Television personality Geraldo Rivera, a Republican who said last week that he might seek Lautenberg's Senate seat next year, isn't getting a very warm reception from New Jersey voters. Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, a Democrat who has all but declared his candidacy for Senate next year, leads Rivera 54 percent to 23 percent, among those polled.

While 59 percent of voters said they viewed Booker favorably, 20 percent said they felt that way about Rivera , and 39 percent said they viewed the television personality unfavorably.

The poll of 1,149 voters was conducted from Feb. 14 to Feb. 17 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

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