Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. still has his hands in gold.
Menendez Jr. overcame the pressures of his last name to win a tough primary against Hoboken Mayor Ravi Barra in the Garden State’s 8th Congressional District and secure the Democratic nomination for a second term in Congress on Tuesday.
The 38-year-old freshman has been wrestling with the fallout from the bribery indictment against his father, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), and stepmother, Nadine Menendez.
Menendez Jr. was not implicated in the case, but many observers saw the indictment as likely to destroy the family’s political machine.
Nevertheless, Menendez Jr. won handily. The Associated Press reported the election results less than 90 minutes after the polls closed on Tuesday night. With 64% of the votes counted, Menendez Jr. had 54% of the vote to Barra’s 35%.
The freshman congressman is highly expected to defeat Republican Anthony Valdez in the November election to represent a majority-Hispanic district that includes parts of Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth.
If he had won, Bhalla would have become the first Sikh to serve in the U.S. Congress in more than 60 years since Rep. Dalip Singh Saud, who represented California from 1957 to 1963.
The Democratic candidate is expected to defeat Republican Anthony Valdez in the November election and represent the majority-Hispanic district that includes parts of Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth.
The race was widely seen as a test of New Jersey’s Democratic Party, which once wielded great influence in primary elections.
It all started when Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said, “County Line” Under this system, local party leaders elevated the status of their preferred candidates by placing them all on the ballot.
New Jersey Republicans still use that system.
Menendez Jr. enjoys both incumbency and the support of leading New Jersey Democrats, campaigning with Gov. Phil Murphy last weekend.
The top Democrat in the House of Representatives, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), also helped Menendez raise funds ahead of the primary runoff election. According to Axios.
In 2022, Menendez Jr. won the Democratic primary with 83% of the vote.
But it quickly became clear that this would be a tougher contest, after Menendez was indicted on bribery charges last September.
Barra, who entered the race weeks after the charges were dropped, had endorsed Menendez Jr. during the 2022 campaign but later attributed it to intimidation.
“The Menendez faction threatened us with damage to Hoboken if we didn’t support him,” said Barra, who was elected Hoboken mayor in 2017 and re-elected in 2021. It was argued in their discussion last week.
Menendez Jr. tried to win over Latino voters, Explaining yourself As “New Jersey’s only Hispanic member of Congress,” he is supported by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ super PAC BOLD. They bombarded the airwaves in support of him..
Menendez is running for re-election as an independent, but with his low approval ratings in most opinion polls, he will have an extremely difficult path back to the Senate.
