New Jersey Democrats to pick replacement for embattled US Senator Menendez

[June 04, 2024]  By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New Jersey Democrats on Tuesday were expected to nominate U.S. Representative Andy Kim to run for the Senate seat currently held by Bob Menendez, who is on trial on corruption charges, setting up a Nov. 5 election that Republicans will be hard-pressed to win.

If he wins the primary in the Democrat-heavy Northeastern state, Kim, a former U.S. State Department foreign affairs officer, would be making his first bid for statewide office in New Jersey, which solidly backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020.

More than 2,000 miles (3,220 km) to the west, Democrats are set to nominate Senator John Tester for another run in what will be one of the party's toughest races this year in its campaign to retain control of the Senate.

While the veteran Menendez will be absent from the Democratic primary for the first time in decades, he has taken steps to get on the general election ballot as an independent candidate.

Menendez is "still very much a favorite" of Cuban American voters in a region of New Jersey that has been known as "Havana on the Hudson," said Ross Baker, distinguished professor of American politics at Rutgers University.

Baker added in a telephone interview, however, that Menendez would likely not prevail as an independent. "He has been disowned by practically everyone, including Governor (Philip) Murphy and, with great reluctance, (fellow U.S.) Senator (Cory) Booker."

Labor union activist Patricia Campos Medina is seen as Kim's main opponent in the primary election.

Republicans also will choose their Senate candidate, with New Jersey real estate developer and hotelier Curtis Bashaw the likely nominee.

The last time New Jersey had an elected Republican senator was in 1978.

Menendez, 70, also looms large in Tuesday's Democratic primary for New Jersey's 8th House of Representatives district, which includes Jersey City. The senator's 38-year-old son, Rob Menendez, is seeking a second two-year term. His leading opponent, 50-year-old Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, has tailored campaign ads aimed at linking the son to his embattled father.

The younger Menendez's "principle burden is his surname, which until this year was an asset," Baker said.

TESTER'S TEST

Democrats this year are engaged in a fierce battle to hold onto their 51-49 Senate majority, defending a half-dozen highly competitive seats as the incumbent Republicans up for reelection are in safely conservative states.

One of the hardest election battles will be in Montana, where voters on Tuesday are set to nominate three-term Senator Tester for another six-year stint.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Andrew Kim of New Jersey, running for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, appears in an undated handout photo obtained by REUTERS on October 11, 2022. Andy Kim/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Political pundits rate the fall race a toss-up between Tester and the likely Republican nominee, Donald Trump-backed Tim Sheehy. The former Navy SEAL is now a businessman.

After Trump was found guilty on Thursday of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to silence a porn star before the 2016 election, Sheehy's campaign aired an ad calling the trial "a state-sponsored political persecution led by Joe Biden and the radical left."

While there has been no evidence that President Biden played any role in the case brought by a Manhattan prosecutor, the ad said, "Jon Tester supported Joe Biden's witch hunt every step of the way."

Monica Robinson, a spokesperson for the Tester campaign, in an emailed statement attacked Sheehy, a former Minnesotan, as an out-of-stater who is "running for Senate to benefit himself, not Montana."

Robinson added that Tester succeeded in getting over 20 bills signed into law by Trump when he was president.

Tester, a Montana farmer, will be running in a state in which Trump, a Republican, prevailed in his two presidential runs, although by a smaller margin in 2020 than in 2016.

"He's (Tester) a little bit of a relic," said Christopher Muste, an associate political science professor at the University of Montana.

"What we're seeing is an unusual Republican slow wave over time that really began in the late 2000s," gradually erasing a history of strong bipartisanship in the Rocky Mountain state, Muste said.

A wild card in this year's voting, however, is the large number of "transplants" who have recently moved to Montana, largely from California, Oregon and Washington state.

These newcomers have fed a surge in housing prices, angering many Montanans, especially those on fixed incomes who are seeing their property taxes escalate.

It's a development that Tester likely will exploit in a general election race against Sheehy, himself a wealthy transplant, Muste said in a telephone interview.

"He's (Sheehy) emblematic of people coming into the state with a lot of money, buying very expensive real estate," Muste said.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

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