Bob Menendez’s longtime fundraiser, Samatha Maltzman, has resigned, the New Jersey Globe has learned.
Maltzman has also been the chief fundraiser for Menendez’s legal defense fund, a role Menendez said she will continue for at least part of next year.
“Samantha is going to be with us into the next year, doing legal defense fundraising work,” Menendez told the New Jersey Globe in a short phone call on Thursday.
Menendez’s fundraising has slowed dramatically since his September 22 indictment on federal corruption charges. Two weeks after the Justice Department announced their charges against the three-term senator, half the hotel rooms at an expensive resort in Puerto Rico where Menendez’s fundraiser was being held were canceled.
He has not announced if he will seek re-election next year. A Stockton University Poll has his approval ratings at 8%, and a Fairleigh Dickison University Poll released last in October showed that 70% of New Jerseyans and 71% of Democrats want Menendez to resign. Worse for Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, 71% of Hispanics said he should resign.
Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), who announced a primary challenge to Menendez on September 23, released an internal poll of likely Democratic primary voters yesterday showing Menendez with just 6% of the vote. First Lady Tammy Murphy and former Newark school board member Lawrence Hamm are also in the Senate race.
Maltzman has been Menendez’s finance director since 2010. She is also departing from the Menendez-run New Millennium PAC.
In the first three quarters of 2023, Maltzman was paid $92,487 in consulting fees by Menendez campaign entities, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. She receives a monthly retainer and bonuses when she hits specific fundraising goals — something made more difficult by the criminal charges against the senator.
A highly-regarded professional fundraiser, Maltzman has also been the New Jersey finance director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, U.S. Senators Cory Booker, Frank Lautenberg, and Rep. Rush Holt. She had remained with Menendez through his 2017 federal corruption trial.
Maltzman is the latest member of Menendez’s top political team to step away: Michael Soliman, his chief political advisor for sixteen years, and Brad Lawrence and Steve DeMicco of Message and Media, Menendez’s political consultants since the 1990s, are no longer involved in the Menendez operation.
Correction: Menendez told the New Jersey Globe that Maltzman will stil fundraise for his legal defense fund into 2024.