Poll pegs Menendez's lead in single digits
Don't look now, but there could be a burgeoning race in New Jersey, where Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez is looking to defend his seat against Republican Bob Hugin.
A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Menendez up 43 points to 37 points among registered voters, a much closer margin than the New Jersey political titan is used to.
One obvious reason for the tighter-than-expected margin could be Menendez's ethics woes — in a year where Democrats are running by blasting President Trump and the GOP as the party of corruption, Menendez was on trial for bribery less than a year ago.
Menendez's case ended in a mistrial and the government eventually dropped the charges against him after not being able to secure a conviction.
But Hugin has spent almost $6 million to ad television ads, most of which were attacks that referred to Menendez's indictment. He's also booked another almost $2 million through Election Day, according to Advertising Analytics data.
Against that backdrop, 49 percent of voters in Quinnipiac's poll said that Menendez was involved in "serious wrongdoing," and ethics in government is the top issue among voters overall, Quinnipiac found.
And Menendez isn't in good shape with the voters more broadly — just 29 percent view him favorably while 47 percent view him unfavorably. Hugin, by comparison, is viewed favorably by 24 percent of voters and unfavorably by 20 percent, with a majority unfamiliar with him.
Even so, Menendez still leads in the poll and has overwhelming support from non-white voters. And Democrats have blasted Hugin as a supporter of President Trump and looking out for big corporations as they look to cut him down a notch.
So while Menendez is still in the driver's seat running in a blue state with a positive national environment for Democrats, Republicans will not make it easy for him and are closer than they've been to taking him down than they've ever been.
Quinnipiac polled 908 registered New Jersey voters between August 15 and 20 on landlines and cell phones. The poll's margin of error is 4.6 percentage points.