Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) tough campaign for renomination got what may be its highest-profile endorser yet this morning: Senator Cory Booker, who called the freshman congressman “an effective champion for the people of his district.”
In less than one month, Menendez will go up against Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla in the Democratic primary for the 8th congressional district, a deep-blue district covering a majority-Hispanic swath of urban North Jersey. A third candidate, Kyle Jasey, is also running, but he’s largely gotten lost in the shuffle against the two frontrunners.
Bhalla has focused his campaign heavily on the federal bribery charges against Menendez’s father, Senator Bob Menendez, whose trial is set to start at the beginning of next week. The elder Menendez has become desperately unpopular among most New Jersey voters, and has faced widespread calls for his resignation from top state politicians – among them Booker, who has long counted Menendez as a friend.
But Booker’s endorsement of the younger Menendez signals that he, like many other Democratic officials in the 8th district, isn’t holding the sins of the father against the son.
“We’ve stood together on so many shared priorities: protecting reproductive rights, lowering costs, fighting to get guns off our streets, securing billions of dollars in funding for the Gateway program, and many more,” Booker said. “Rob has earned another term in Congress, and I’m proud to endorse his campaign for reelection so we can keep fighting together on the issues New Jerseyans care about most.”
Menendez also has the support of every county party organization in the 8th district, most of the district’s mayors and state legislators, and a large number of top labor unions. In a typical New Jersey election year, that should be enough to win renomination easily.
But this year is unusual, in part because of the charges against the elder Menendez and in part because of the absence of the county line, the ballot design system that was struck down for this year’s Democratic primary. With those tailwinds working in his favor, Bhalla has raised $1.6 million for his campaign – just ahead of Menendez’s $1.4 million – and the race between them is widely viewed as a toss-up.