A round of mailers sent by a cryptocurrency-backed super PAC in support of Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) feature an old Menendez opponent, Assemblyman Ravi Bhalla (D-Hoboken), who says his photo is being used without his consent.
The mailers from Protect Progress, a crypto industry PAC that’s spent tens of millions of dollars on House primaries in recent years, include a picture of Menendez and Bhalla talking in 2022, when the two Democrats were still tenuous political allies. Bhalla, the former mayor of Hoboken, went on to run against Menendez in the 2024 Democratic primary, losing after an expensive and bitter race.
“I did not consent to or authorize the use of my photo in a mailer sent by a dark-money, pro-crypto Super PAC to thousands of residents across this district,” Bhalla said of Protect Progress’s new ad campaign. “Two years ago, I ran a grassroots campaign and refused corporate PAC money because billionaires should not be able to buy our elections.”
Bhalla has not endorsed anyone in the race between Menendez and former Jersey City school board president Mussab Ali, but Ali said that the mailers are evidence that Menendez is in the pocket of corrupt interests. “The people of the district deserve a congressman who answers to them, not to Coinbase or the crypto billionaires trying to buy this seat,” Ali charged.
Protect Progress did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the mailers, while Menendez campaign manager Ryan Eustace said that the congressman’s campaign had nothing to do with them: “Mussab knows that Rob has no involvement or responsibility for what an independent expenditure does,” he said.
So far, Protect Progress has reported spending just $64,000 on the pro-Menendez effort, a drop in the bucket compared to some of the cryptocurrency industry’s other multimillion-dollar electoral efforts.
Still, that makes it the first outside group to spend much of anything on this year’s 8th district race; Menendez is considered the substantial favorite against Ali, and both his allies and critics have acted like it. (The National Association of Realtors’ PAC has also spent around $10,000 on digital ads supporting Menendez.)
Things were very different in 2024, when pro-Menendez and pro-Bhalla super PACs alike flooded the 8th district’s airwaves and mailboxes. One of those super PACs was Protect Progress, which spent a little over $200,000 boosting Menendez; the congressman also got $250,000 worth of help from a separate cryptocurrency group, Protect Our Future, during his first run for the 8th district in 2022.