- Rep. Rob Menendez, son of Sen. Bob Menendez, just won a tough primary election.
- Hoboken Mayor Ravi Barra countered, focusing primarily on Menendez’s scandals.
- The race comes after machine politics suffered a major setback in New Jersey.
New Jersey Rep. Rob Menendez, son of scandal-plagued Sen. Bob Menendez, defeated a well-funded Democratic primary challenger in New Jersey on Tuesday, according to Decision Desk HQ and the Associated Press.
It’s a major victory for Senator Menendez, who has been fighting the biggest fight of his life amid his father’s sordid corruption scandal. Senator Menendez is accused of accepting bribes, including stacks of cash and bars of gold, in exchange for acting as a foreign agent. His trial began last month and continues today.
He was being challenged by Hoboken Mayor Ravi Barra, who campaigned primarily around Menendez, and who has not been linked to his father’s wrongdoing but has defended him amid the allegations and pointedly refused to comment on his father’s upcoming independent Senate run in an interview with Business Insider in April.
“We can’t afford to dwell on the what ifs, what ifs, what ifs,” Menendez said at the time. “We have a lot to deal with right now.”
Bhalla would have made history as the second Sikh American elected to Congress and the first to wear a turban.
The primary was also a key test of how candidates would fare in New Jersey without the so-called “county line” system that has enabled machine politics for decades — essentially a ballot-design trick that has allowed party organizations to hand-pick their own candidates in state elections.
A federal judge invalidated the June primary system, potentially permanently voiding it, following a lawsuit filed by Rep. Andy Kim against First Lady Tammy Murphy during his short-lived primary campaign. Kim officially became the Democratic candidate for Senate on Tuesday.
The system allowed Menendez to be installed as president by party leaders in 2022, even though he has never held elected office before.
During the recent debate, Senator Barra alleged that he was essentially pressured to support his son, Mr. Menendez, that year, and that Senator Menendez was on speakerphone with his son during that call.
