Years before they’re on the ballot, Menendez and Booker building formidable warchests

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, who does not face voters again until 2024, has $4,752,111 in his campaign warchest.

Menendez raised $940,049 during the second quarter of 2022 and has brought in $5,762,488 since the close of his 2018 re-election.

Cory Booker, whose U.S. Senate seat is not up again until 2026, raised $7,199,676 cash-on-hand  — about half a Gottheimer — after a $1,351,743 fundraising haul over the last three months.

The chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez is the favorite to win a fourth full-term in two years in a state that has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972. Only Hawaii has gone longer without a GOP U.S. Senate victory.

In his 2018 re-election campaign, Menendez set the record for the most votes by a U.S. Senate candidate in a mid-term election despite a Republican opponent who spent $36 million of his own money to defeat him.

Booker, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2024 if Joe Biden declines to seek a second term, holds record for the greatest number of votes ever received by a statewide candidate in New Jersey.

If Booker were to win the presidency in 2024, Gov. Phil Murphy would appointed a new U.S. Senator – and set the date of a special election.  Murphy could either call a free-standing election or set the date to coincide with the regular primary and general elections.  That would put both of New Jersey’s U.S. Senate seats up for grabs on the same day.