Sen. Bob Menendez isn’t on the New Jersey primary ballot, but his bribery and corruption trial may be the most important factor in shaping Tuesday’s key contests in the state.
Five states — New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico, Iowa and South Dakota — are holding primaries on Tuesday. Most of the attention will be on the Garden State, where Menendez’s legal woes have shaken up the race for his own Senate seat and put his son, Democratic Rep. Rob Menendez, in a competitive primary.
The younger Menendez is facing a hotly contested House primary against Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla as he runs for a second term in the deep-blue 8th District in the northern part of the state, which includes parts of Newark and Jersey City. Bhalla has sought to tie Rob Menendez to his father, who has been charged with 18 counts of bribery and corruption. The senator has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
Bhalla has outraised and outspent Rob Menendez in the race, and he’s received some help from an outside group called America’s Promise PAC. The group launched a TV ad linking Rob Menendez to his father’s trial, with a narrator saying: “They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. So it’s no wonder that Rob Menendez is defending his father’s corruption,” later added that the congressman is “rotten to the core.” (Rob Menendez has not been accused of any impropriety.)
Rob Menendez, meanwhile, has had a boost from BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Protect Progress, a group tied to the cryptocurrency industry. One BOLD PAC TV ad touted his work to lower drug costs and protect Medicare and Social Security, with a narrator saying that the two-term congressman is “working every day to lower costs and protect what matters to our families.”
Rob Menendez, the only Hispanic member of New Jersey’s House delegation, is also looking to leverage his ties to communities in the majority-Hispanic district.
For his part, Bob Menendez announced in March that he would not run for re-election this year as a Democrat. But he filed Monday to run as an independent, a process that allows him to collect fewer signatures to qualify for the ballot. An ongoing campaign also means Menendez can continue to raise and spend campaign funds on legal fees.
Menendez’s bribery charges prompted a Democratic primary to replace him in the Senate, with three-term Rep. Andy Kim launching a bid the day after Menendez was indicted in September.
Although there are other Democrats vying for the nomination, Kim is the front-runner in the polls in Tuesday’s primary after Tammy Murphy, wife of Gov. Phil Murphy, ended her campaign in March.
The abrupt end to Murphy’s Senate bid came as Kim tapped into grassroots energy, firing up activists who were fed up with the state’s Democratic Party machines, especially following Menendez’s indictment. Kim has already notched one victory — changing the state’s ballot design so county parties can no longer give their favored candidates advantageous positions on the ballot.
Although New Jersey has been solidly Democratic in recent years, Kim has warned that Menendez’s run as an independent could make the race competitive in November.
“There is no way that he can win this seat,” Kim told NBC News in March amid reports that Menendez was considering running for re-election. “But what he could do is jeopardize this seat and give Republicans a chance.”
On the Republican side, real estate developer Curtis Bashaw, who is self-funding his campaign, is the only candidate who has spent significant funds on the airwaves, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner, who is also self-funding her campaign, is the other top GOP contender.
Other New Jersey races of note
There is a crowded Democratic primary to replace Kim in the 3rd District, where the party’s nominee is expected to carry the seat in November. None of the candidates are on the airwaves, according to AdImpact, but state Assemblyman Herb Conaway has gotten boosts from the outside groups VoteVets and 314 Action, which backs candidates with STEM backgrounds. Conaway is an Air Force veteran and a physician.
Tuesday’s primary will also solidify the matchup in New Jersey’s competitive 7th District, where Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is running for a second term. Democrats have already coalesced around Sue Altman, who previously led the New Jersey Working Families Alliance.
Democratic Rep. Donald Payne Jr., who died in April, is still on the primary ballot because he died after the state’s filing deadline. Party leaders will select his replacement for the November ballot at a later date.
The special election primary to serve out the rest of Payne’s term is set for July 16, with a special election on Sept. 18.
And while President Joe Biden has long clinched enough delegates to be the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, opponents of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war successfully petitioned for the slogan “Justice for Palestine, Permanent Ceasefire Now” to appear on the ballot underneath the choice of “uncommitted” in the Democratic presidential primary.
Key Senate race in Montana will be set
While New Jersey’s contests are in the spotlight on this relatively sleepy Tuesday primary day, there are a few other races worth keeping tabs on around the country.
In Montana, voters will almost certainly rubber-stamp Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Republican Tim Sheehy’s spots on the general election ballot, formalizing a matchup in one of the most consequential races in the battle for control of the Senate.
Montana presents Republicans with one of their best chances to flip a Senate seat this year — they need to gain a net of two seats to win control of the body outright (and only one if they win the presidency since the vice president casts tie-breaking votes in the Senate). Former President Donald Trump won the state by 16 points in 2020, and while some Democrats like Tester have found recent electoral success there, it’s tougher sledding for the party in a presidential year.
Sheehy, an ex-Navy SEAL and businessman, has largely cleared the GOP field and won the backing of the party’s establishment, including Trump. Democrats have sought to frame him as an outsider (he’s lived in the state for about a decade), and he’s drawn some negative headlines about a discrepancy regarding a gunshot wound he suffered. But Sheehy has shown himself to be a strong fundraiser, boosted in part by more than $2 million in personal loans to his campaign, and Republicans are bullish on his chances of knocking off Tester, who they’ve been linking to President Joe Biden on issues like immigration.
There’s also an open congressional seat in the state with Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale retiring. The GOP primary for the 2nd District is likely to decide who will replace Rosendale in the deep-red district. That’s led to a crowded field that includes state Auditor Troy Downing, former U.S. Rep. Denny Rehburg and state schools Superintendent Elsie Arntzen.
New Mexico and Iowa don’t have much in the way of competitive primaries on Tuesday, but voters are expected to set the stage for some key races this fall.
In New Mexico, Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich and Republican Nella Domenici are the only major candidates in the Senate primaries. While New Mexico hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate in more than two decades, and Biden won the state by 10 points in 2020, the GOP is eyeing the seat as a reach if things break right for the party in the fall.
Tuesday will also set up another key general election race in New Mexico’s 2nd District, where Democratic Rep. Gabriel Vasquez is running against former Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell in a rematch of 2022.
Iowa has trended Republican in recent years, but it’s possible that the 1st District (represented by Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks) and the 3rd District (represented by Republican Rep. Zach Nunn) could be competitive in the fall. Democrats will select their nominees for those races on Tuesday — former state Rep. Christina Bohannan is poised to run against Miller-Meeks in the fall, a rematch of 2022, and former federal Department of Agriculture official Lanon Baccam is the front-runner to face Nunn.
And South Dakota’s heavy Republican tilt means primary day is virtually the only game in town for deciding who will represent the state next year up and down the ballot. The state’s U.S. and top statewide officeholders are not up for re-election, leaving state legislative primaries as the most competitive races on the ballot.
