Menendez is wildly unpopular, according to VoteVets internal poll

A poll released today by Democratic PAC VoteVets finds that Senator Bob Menendez is massively unpopular among New Jersey voters, putting his favorability ratings at a dismal 8% favorable, 74% unfavorable. 

VoteVets, which backs veterans and national security officials for elected office, released the poll with a specific agenda; the PAC is supporting Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown)’s primary challenge against Menendez in 2024. According to the poll, conducted by liberal pollster Public Policy Polling, Kim’s favorables are much healthier at 30% favorable, 21% unfavorable.

Menendez, of course, was indicted last week on explosive federal bribery charges, and has since faced widespread calls to resign. The senator has never been one of New Jersey’s more popular politicians – a Monmouth poll released last month, before the indictment, put his approvals at 36%-45% – but VoteVets’s poll is the first indication of just how far he’s fallen in the last week.

Even among Democrats, Menendez’s position is looking dire, with an approval rating of 12%-67% among respondents who said they voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Just 27% of Hispanics, Menendez’s longtime political base, approve of the senator, versus 52% who disapprove (though the sample size for Hispanic voters is likely quite small).

The poll also found that Menendez could be in danger of losing the seat to a Republican if he does win renomination in 2024. Menendez trails a generic “Republican opponent,” 20%-42%, with another 25% of the vote going towards “someone else.”

Kim, meanwhile, would beat the generic Republican 44%-32%, with only 5% going to someone else. (It’s worth noting that when polls test a specific named candidate against an unnamed generic challenger, the generic challenger typically does better than a named challenger would, since a “Republican/Democratic opponent” doesn’t have the baggage that any real Republican or Democratic candidate has.)

According to the poll, voters seem to be paying close attention to the contest, certainly more so than they normally would more than a year before Election Day. 48% of respondents said they’d heard “a lot” about the charges against Menendez, and another 31% said they’d heard “some”; 12% said “just a little,” and 6% said “nothing at all.”

The fact that VoteVets is supporting Kim at all is worth noting as well. The group has long supported Kim’s campaigns, but it’s also strongly allied with another New Jersey member of Congress, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), who has also been discussed as a potential U.S. Senate candidate; VoteVets’ support for Kim is evidence that Sherrill may not be interested in running after all.

The Public Policy Polling poll was conducted on behalf of VoteVets from September 26-27 with a sample size of 565 New Jersey voters. It’s unclear what the margin of error is.