With Menendez under indictment, what’s going to happen to his Senate seat?

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was indicted today on federal bribery charges, sending shockwaves through the political worlds of both New Jersey and Washington D.C.

The ensuing legal proceedings to determine Menendez’s guilt or innocence could, of course, take years to resolve, with a trial probably not coming anytime soon. But New Jersey Democrats face a much more immediate problem: what the hell is going to happen to Menendez’s Senate seat, which comes before voters next year?

Much of that rests on Menendez himself – whether he steps aside or chooses to forge ahead with his re-election bid, as a statement he released this morning implies he may do.

If he does the latter, state Democrats will have to decide whether they truly want to stick with him. They did so once before after previous charges were made in 2015, but the new charges released today could be so massively damning that they break the spell; nominating Menendez again might even make Republicans a real threat in the general election, which would be almost unthinkable with any other candidate.

For now, there seem to be four main options: Menendez retires, he resigns, he faces a serious primary challenge with institutional backing, or he somehow gets off scot-free once again. Here’s a look at how each of those four paths might play out.

Retirement

Menendez’s most straightforward option is one that many, many politicians under a cloud of legal trouble have done before: retire.

Since the senator’s seat is up next year, intense legal scrutiny – and possibly even the trial itself – would take place while he’s attempting to run for re-election. Menendez may decide that, as much as he detests the idea of giving up his perch in Congress, he’d rather bow out voluntarily than fight what may be a losing battle. 

There might also be some behind-the-scenes pressure from state Democratic leaders for Menendez to step aside and allow the party to find a new nominee. That will be one of the key things to watch in the coming weeks: whether party leaders stick with Menendez, or begin agitating for a replacement with fewer legal woes.

In particular, reactions from Democratic chair LeRoy Jones, South Jersey power broker George Norcross, Middlesex Democratic chair Kevin McCabe, Union Democratic chair Nick Scutari, Bergen Democratic chair Paul Juliano, and Passaic Democratic chair John Currie will be critical. President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Cory Booker, and Gov. Phil Murphy could also weigh in and make it clear where they stand on Menendez’s political future.

(No matter what, Menendez’s chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is over for now, thanks to Senate Democratic rules that prevent senators charged with felonies from serving as committee chairs.)

If Menendez does choose not to run again in 2024, there’s no shortage of Democrats who would be eager to succeed him.

At the top of the list are four U.S. representatives: Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), Donald Norcross (D-Camden), and Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), each of whom already has a solid national profile and fundraising base. Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) has been out of office since the beginning of this year, but he, too, might consider jumping in.

There are also some state- and local-level politicians who could take a look at the race, such as Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter (D-North Haledon), and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who is currently running for governor. And First Lady Tammy Murphy, a key player in her husband’s gubernatorial administration, has been seriously discussed as a possibility as well.

In this scenario, the next few months would be a scramble among the contenders to get as many organizational lines – the system in New Jersey that allows county parties to put their preferred candidates in an advantageous position on primary ballots – as possible. County Democratic leaders would have a tremendous amount of power in determining who gets the nomination for Senate, and their support or lack thereof would significantly define the field long before voters get the chance to weigh in.

Those same leaders would also be making decisions with the 2025 gubernatorial race in mind. 

Several possible Senate contenders, including Fulop, Gottheimer, Sherrill, and Baraka, have all strongly telegraphed their interest in running for governor (or, in Fulop’s case, have already announced a campaign); a Menendez resignation could deflect one or more into an open Senate race. They may have been telling people for years that they want to be governor, but circumstances change, and candidates can change course along with them.

In addition to shaking up the 2025 field, that could also kickstart the beginning of a broader deal among Democratic leaders that spans both races. The contours of the 2025 gubernatorial primary are just beginning to come into focus, but an open Senate race would move up the timetable substantially, forcing deals to be made in the next few months that could have reverberations for decades to come.

To put it more simply: if you support my candidate for Senate, I’ll support yours for governor – a grand Jersey bargain.

Resignation

Retirement may sate some of Menendez’s critics, but it would still leave the senator in office for another 16 months. Some will surely be calling for him to one step further and resign immediately.

Unless it’s part of a deal with prosecutors – something that likely wouldn’t come into play for a while – resignation might be Menendez’s least favorite option, in no small part because it would severely limit the amount of money he could raise for his own legal defense.

But hypothetically, a resignation would give Gov. Phil Murphy the power to appoint Menendez’s successor – a major decision for a governor currently serving out the last years of his time in office.

Murphy could choose to appoint one of New Jersey’s nine Democratic representatives, with the two top options likely being Sherrill and Kim. Both are broadly popular among state Democrats, and both would make history in their own ways: Sherrill as New Jersey’s first female senator, Kim as its first Asian American senator.

Other members of Congress might be in play, too. George Norcross has said he would give up his right arm to put his brother Donald in the U.S. Senate, though given Murphy’s strained relationship with the South Jersey Democratic machine, that may not be such a compelling argument for the governor.

Murphy may also decide that, rather than personally pick someone who will be in office for decades to come, it would be more prudent to appoint a caretaker. There are any number of New Jersey politicians for whom a year or so as a U.S. senator would be a sterling capstone to their career, giving Murphy lots of potential options to choose from.

Under that scenario, the 2024 primary for the seat would proceed as an open-seat race, with no incumbency advantage provided to any one candidate.

Two other out-of-the-box options: Murphy could appoint his wife Tammy, or resign and get himself appointed by newly minted Gov. Tahesha Way. The optics of either move might not be great, but it’s been done before – including earlier this year by Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska governor-turned-U.S. senator – and it would allow the Murphy political dynasty to live on.

There’s also the politically complex issue of diversity, something Murphy’s administration has made a top priority in appointments to the New Jersey judiciary and gubernatorial cabinet. Menendez is the only Latino to ever represent New Jersey in the Senate, and one of only a few Latinos serving in the Senate at all; Murphy would likely be under some pressure to maintain that representation if possible.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many options to choose from. Besides Menendez, the two most prominent Hispanic politicians in the state are State Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark) and Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) – but the younger Menendez is hardly a realistic possibility, since that would mean replacing a senator resigning under indictment with his own son.

(In fact, Congressman Menendez’s own seat could be in some jeopardy depending on how the next few months play out, given that his ascension to Congress last year was dependent in large part on his father.)

Regardless, though, even if Murphy doesn’t narrow his search process to Hispanic candidates exclusively, he’d still likely lean towards choosing a new senator who expands the diversity of New Jersey’s congressional delegation in one way or another.

Primary challenge

Both of the above scenarios rest on the assumption that Menendez won’t be on the ballot in 2024. That’s far from a sure thing, though, and the senator could very well decide that he wants to fight it out after all; his statement this morning, blasting those who have “attempted to silence [his] voice and dig [his] political grave,” certainly indicates that has no intention of fading away quietly.

If Menendez does run again, that could prompt something that New Jersey Democrats have long murmured about but rarely said out loud: a primary challenge.

Right now, the only Democrat running against Menendez is little-known real estate lender Kyle Jasey, the son of a state assemblywoman. Roselle Park Mayor Joe Signorello, who had been running a somewhat higher-profile campaign earlier this year, dropped out of the race over the summer in favor of a House campaign instead.

But today’s federal indictment will shake up that quiet state of affairs. Lots of state Democrats who would normally never entertain taking on an incumbent senator will undoubtedly take a look at the race even if Menendez does insist on running again.

The list of potential primary challengers is largely the same as the list of potential candidates who might run in an open seat race. If, say, Kim or Sherrill were to get into the race, they could quickly establish themselves as the standard-bearer against Menendez and turn the race into an all-out brawl.

They may decide that taking on Menendez presents too much of a risk, though, which could open the door for a variety of other possibilities. Malinowski, for example, or an ambitious state lawmaker like Sumter might not be in the top tier of candidates in an open-seat race, but if they have the guts to run for Senate when no one else will, that could be their path to victory.

The big test for any prospective challenger would be wresting as many endorsements and county lines away from Menendez as possible.

In New Jersey politics, the instinct among party leaders is usually to stick with the status quo and re-elect incumbents except in the most extreme circumstances. Any challenger to Menendez would have to confront that tendency head-on, and make a compelling case for why they should be the first person to depose a sitting New Jersey senator since 1978.

But from the outset, a large number of county parties would likely be hesitant to support Menendez again. That includes the state’s most traditionally progressive Democratic organizations like Mercer, Hunterdon, Morris, Warren, Sussex, and Somerset; some South Jersey counties like Burlington, Atlantic, Cape May, and possibly Cumberland; and perhaps even Monmouth and Bergen, two huge sources of votes.

In a hypothetical scenario in which a strong primary challenger sweeps most of those county lines and runs a strong off-the-line bid elsewhere, that would make the contest a highly competitive, nationally watched affair – and could spell the end for Menendez. 

…Nothing

It’s hard to imagine a senator under criminal indictment getting re-elected with no real pushback from his party. But it shouldn’t be that hard to imagine, since something similar happened in 2018.

Granted, during Menendez’s last tangle with federal investigators, the result was an acquittal after the trial ended in a mistrial. That allowed New Jersey Democrats to throw their support behind someone who was no longer under investigation or facing any charges, something that almost certainly won’t be true this time.

And yet Menendez is a powerful enough force in New Jersey politics that if he does choose to run for re-election, the stars could conceivably align for him once again. Party bosses may ultimately decide that it’s still worth forging ahead with the three-term senator, criminal charges be damned.

Even in such a scenario, however, renomination might not be such a smooth ride for Menendez. In 2018, Menendez faced a challenge from perennial candidate Lisa McCormick, who raised no money and got no institutional support – and still won 38% of the vote.

No matter what the county parties do, someone of a higher caliber than McCormick will almost certainly step up to challenge Menendez this time around. The question then becomes, is the full might of the New Jersey county line system strong enough to save a senator facing such serious charges?

Should Menendez indeed make it through the 2024 primary while under indictment, a new player is set to enter the arena: the New Jersey GOP.

Republicans aren’t exactly optimistic about winning a New Jersey Senate race in a presidential year, especially given that when they tried to take down Menendez in 2018 with self-funding recruit Bob Hugin, they lost in a 54%-43% blowout. With the unpopular Donald Trump likely at the top of the Republican ticket in 2024, the task will be even harder.

But the GOP will certainly show more interest in the campaign if they are running against an indicted senator who may have to take time off from campaigning to defend himself in court. The GOP frontrunner at the moment is Christine Serrano Glassner, a small-town mayor in Morris County who has national Republican connections.

If things get really bad, there could even be a repeat of the 2002 Senate race, in which Senator Bob Torricelli was subbed out for former Senator Frank Lautenberg two months before Election Day. That’s an extreme step, of course, but one that could come into play depending on Menendez’s poll numbers leading up to November 2024.

Given the severity of the charges against him, this seems like the least likely of the four paths. The idea that no Democratic party leaders anywhere in the state choose to ditch Menendez appears, at this point, improbable.

But fundamentally, no one really knows yet what will happen. Within days or even hours, new information may arise that could radically reshape the state of affairs. There’s one future in which Menendez fights it out all the way to November and beyond; there’s another in which he announces his resignation in the next few weeks.

It’s in the senator’s hands now.