Promising to ‘choose courage,’ Mussab Ali launches primary challenge against Rob Menendez

Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City)’s early years in Congress were, inevitably, defined by his father. Senator Bob Menendez secured his son an open congressional seat in 2022, scaring off any potential opposition; then, in 2024, the elder Menendez’s indictment on federal corruption charges thrust the younger Menendez into a fight for his political life, fending off attack adds that declared “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Those days are over now: Menendez won his 2024 contest handily, his father was sentenced to 11 years in prison, and New Jersey has moved on. But there are still those in Menendez’s 8th congressional district who believe he doesn’t deserve re-election, and one of his critics is now stepping up to run against him.

Mussab Ali, the 28-year-old former president of the Jersey City Board of Education, is announcing today that he’ll take on Menendez in the June primary election for the 8th district, a majority-Hispanic seat that spans Jersey City, Newark, and Elizabeth. But Ali said that his campaign, unlike the unsuccessful effort waged by Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla two years ago, will be all about the son, not the father.

“I think that it’s important that we have democracy over dynasties, but I am not running to question the track record of his father,” Ali told the New Jersey Globe. “I am running to question his track record in Congress. He is a moderate, corporate Democrat who inherited this seat.”

Ali – who ran for Jersey City mayor last year, ultimately coming in fourth place but overperforming expectations – laid out an ambitious progressive platform that includes passing Medicare for All, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, taxing the rich, stopping “endless wars” abroad, and reducing the power of money in politics.

And on all five points, Ali argued, Menendez has not lived up to the moment. The congressman has not come out in favor of a Medicare for All bill in Congress, he accepts plenty of corporate PAC money, and he has a broadly pro-Israel voting record in Congress, enough so that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lists him as an endorsed candidate. (Menendez has also generally declined to use the specific language of “abolish ICE,” but he has been harshly critical of the agency and said he will “keep fighting until ICE no longer exists.”)

“Democrats need to step up and become the party where we abandon corporate PACs, we won’t take money from groups like AIPAC, and we need to be accountable to everyday people,” Ali said. “If the same people who are funding Democrats are funding Republicans, how do we ever expect progress?”

Menendez, for his part, has spent the last year shoring up his own standing in the district, anticipating another primary fight. A big piece of that was once again securing the backing of the Hudson County Democratic Organization, which propelled him to victory in both 2022 and 2024; he did just that earlier this month, earning endorsements from Union City Mayor Brian Stack and HCDO Chairman Craig Guy.

But to a much greater extent than in 2024, Menendez has also made inroads among the progressive politicians and groups who once viewed him with great skepticism. Senator Andy Kim, the de facto leader of the state’s anti-machine movement, has endorsed Menendez; so too have progressive Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) and LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), who work closely with Menendez on immigration issues, and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and 32BJ SEIU, which stayed neutral in 2024.

Menendez said in response to Ali’s campaign launch that he intends to “keep fighting for you, for our communities, for everyone who calls this district home.”

“I have been on the frontline of the battle for the soul of our nation and have put it all on the line to defend our freedoms and the promise of America,” the congressman said in a statement. “In this critical moment, we need someone who will never back down from a fight. From Delaney Hall to Minneapolis to the halls of Congress, I have been in this fight for all of us, never wavering from our shared beliefs.”

To counter Menendez’s support, Ali will need to rally the burgeoning progressive movement in Jersey City and Hoboken, two towns that have been ground-zero for reform-minded politicians in recent years. Jersey City Mayor James Solomon comes from that progressive orbit, as do new assemblymembers Katie Brennan and Ravi Bhalla and the entirety of the current Jersey City Council.

Ali’s campaign launch is only coming with one endorsement already in place – Jamaal Bowman, a former left-wing New York congressman who lost to a primary challenger in 2024 – but he said he’s got a broader coalition waiting in the wings.

“My campaign represents the progressive movement broadly,” Ali said. “I think the endorsements are going to come over time.”

The geography of the district, though, means that Ali will have to expand his base beyond just the progressive core. Bhalla swept Jersey City and Hoboken in 2024, but they were outweighed by the thousands of Hispanic voters in Newark, Elizabeth, and the North Hudson towns of Union City, North Bergen, and West New York who pulled the lever for Menendez.

Ali has some experience as an underdog. Last year, few gave him much of a shot at coming anywhere close to the three frontrunners for mayor of Jersey City, but his base among left-leaning young voters and Asian Americans propelled him to a solid fourth-place finish with 18% of the vote; though he lived just barely in the 10th district’s portion of Jersey City at the time (he’s since moved into the 8th), he came in third place within the boundaries of the 8th district. In the runoff election, he endorsed Solomon, who won in a landslide.

Ali, a Muslim American who immigrated from Pakistan at the age of three, began his political career when he was just 20 years old, winning a Jersey City school board seat while he was still a student at Rutgers. In 2021, he became the board’s president, but his career got temporarily cut short thanks to a cancer diagnosis; he later announced he was cancer-free and got a degree from Harvard Law School.

His new mission of unseating Menendez and defeating the Hudson County machine will not be an easy one, as many previous unsuccessful progressive candidates can attest. But in talking with “everyday people,” Ali said, he believes the district is ready for a change.

“I don’t think the race is about one person. It’s about whether voters get a representative who answers to them, or answers to a political machine,” Ali said. “We all know how [Menendez] got the seat – this is not someone who’s answering to people. This is not someone who’s going to voters and asking for their vote. This is someone who answers to a political machine. And I think voters are tired of that.”

This story was updated at 10:42 a.m. with a statement from Menendez.