How a House Race Explains Bob Menendez’s Grip on New Jersey

The family name may be tainted, and the gold bars and the boots and jackets stuffed with cash seized as federal evidence, but Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) may yet bequeath an inheritance to his only son: a permanent seat in Congress, courtesy of the money-fueled political machine the senator himself once steered.

Nobody The Daily Beast spoke with in Hudson County, which constitutes the core of New Jersey’s Eighth Congressional District and lies directly across the water from Manhattan, denied that the senator installed now-Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) in the House in 2022—and in the very seat the patriarch himself held from 1993 until 2006. This unceremonious anointment involved shoving other prospective candidates aside by securing the support of the county’s Democratic organization, which itself meant locking down endorsements from the 12 mayors who control nearly all politics in the area.

One of those mayors was Ravi Bhalla of Hoboken, who aspires to unseat the senator’s namesake in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. And he now recounts the endorsement request two years ago as little more than a shakedown.

“I was sitting in a meeting, a routine office meeting, and I was pulled aside and told that Robert Menendez, not Bob but Rob, was running for Congress and was going to be calling me, it's my recollection, in the next 20 minutes or so to ask for my endorsement,” Bhalla said in an interview with The Daily Beast, describing how his aide conveyed the urgency of the call. “He was told by the gentleman ‘let the mayor know that Senator Menendez is going to be on speakerphone. The senator is going to be listening when his son asks for an endorsement.’”

Bhalla said he interpreted this as a tacit threat that the elder Menendez might obstruct Hoboken’s access to federal grants. The senator, who waged a public political war against the mayor of nearby Jersey City only a few years before, did not respond to a request for comment that The Daily Beast sent to his office.

The younger Menendez’s team did not make the scion available for an interview, despite an initial indication from his campaign manager that they would. But the first-term congressman did not dispute Bhalla’s account of the call at a recent debate.

What’s indisputable is that much has changed since 2022. In September, the Department of Justice indicted the senator and his wife for allegedly taking bribes—fat envelopes of cash and slabs of gold, plus a luxury car and household items—in exchange for using his post to meddle not only in state matters but international ones. The senator and his associates maintain their innocence.

Meeeanwhile, a lawsuit filed by Rep. Andy Kim, who is running to replace Menendez Sr. in the upper chamber, brought about at least a temporary end to the state’s notorious “county line”: a special ballot row where local political machines could line up their favored candidates, giving them a massive advantage among low-information voters. Bhalla was among those who filed an amicus brief in support of Kim's litigation.

Despite these events, and even with the elder Menendez’s freedom hanging before a Manhattan court as polls open, multiple sources—including a few supporting Bhalla—told The Daily Beast that the senator’s son stands a strong chance of triumphing on Tuesday and further entrenching himself in D.C. And that’s because the congressman has retained the support of the county Democratic organization, particularly in his dad’s hometown of Union City, where Mayor Brian Stack runs what is considered the strongest voter turnout operation in the state.

The organization’s strength—and its vulnerabilities—helps explain why so many Democrats locally and across New Jersey stood by the senator for years, even as his reputation blackened and he narrowly survived a prior bribery trial. Why the organization, and most of Bhalla’s fellow mayors, have stuck now with him is another question.

"The confluence of the municipal and county government, plus the federal government bringing funds in—that's the machine,” said Bhalla-backing local lawyer and activist Hector Oseguera, highlighting the flow of cash from public coffers to private contractors and then into political war chests—and possibly into a few personal pockets along the way.

Oseguera, who unsuccessfully sought the House seat himself in 2020, noted that the elder Menendez himself served as the county organization’s chairman two decades ago, and that he has remained intensely active in local affairs while securing hundreds of millions in tax dollars for New Jersey at the national level. He also recalled a remark the senator made last fall, after the county organization bowed to an even more powerful Democrat, Gov. Phil Murphy, and endorsed First Lady Tammy Murphy last November in her since-aborted bid for the Senate.

“I know where all the skeletons in the closets are, I know who all the players are in and out of government,” the senator raged in a statement, vowing to win re-election with or without his old friends’ support. He is now seeking another term as an independent, despite the criminal charges.

Oseguera and other Bhalla allies The Daily Beast consulted pointed out that the Hudson County Democratic organization endorsed the younger Menendez for re-election just two weeks after these remarks. They additionally highlighted that Menendez-supporting North Bergen Mayor Nick Sacco—who served as a state lawmaker—received a federal subpoena last year regarding legislation of interest to the senator and to one of the businessmen accused of bribing him. Stack, who also sits in the statehouse, was a co-sponsor of the bill, and both men have been named as potential witnesses in the senator’s trial.

Stack did not respond to repeated calls and text messages for comment. Sacco, for his part, denied having had any contact with the feds past the subpoena 12 months ago. He instead pointed to the congressman’s success in bringing back funds for local infrastructure projects as the reason for his endorsement.

“The senator at one time served as the chairman of the county party, he knows of secrets that I could only dream of being able to put in a book I would write,” said County Commissioner Bill O’Dea, who supports Rep. Menendez’s re-election. "A fictional book, though, of course.”

But O’Dea denied the indicted lawmaker’s comments had any impact on his own endorsement, which he attributed to the congressman’s strong constituent services. Further, he said he doubted they influenced any mayor’s choice. Other sources close to the county organization proposed motives ranging from abiding respect for the senator, to sentimental affection for the son, to fear of alienating Latino voters—who make up a plurality of the House district’s population, and a majority in several towns that still have largely white political leadership.

What O’Dea and Oseguera agreed on was that the backing of Stack and Sacco and the rest of the establishment grants the incumbent congressman a tremendous edge. Both predicted that, in a low-turnout primary, the machine will churn out its supporters in the thousands: municipal workers and senior citizens, particularly out of the much-diminished but hyper-engaged Cuban-American community from which the Menendez family hails.

If there is hope for Bhalla, it lies in Jersey City and Hoboken, enclaves that have attracted educated and affluent Manhattan expats for whom the Menendez brand has been poisoned and the old guard holds little sway.

But even in these locales, the machine has shown its power. Multiple members of the Hoboken City Council have endorsed Rep. Menendez. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, the only other powerful Menendez enemy in the district, has remained neutral. Fulop hopes to capture the governor’s mansion in next year’s election, and the support of the local Democratic establishment could prove crucial to these ambitions.

For his part, Menendez Jr. has sought to minimize his links to his embattled dad—literally shrinking the family name on campaign signs and making sure to appear on the ballot as “Rob” rather than “Robert.” Still, several of his top campaign staffers are longtime operatives for his father, and the senator’s New Millennium political action committee gave $10,000 to the congressman’s campaign in late November.

But insiders agreed that Bhalla is an imperfect messenger for a good government-oriented campaign. Although he emerged from a reformist faction 15 years ago, the Hoboken politician had in recent years grown cozier with his colleagues in other parts of the county, and the organization allowed him to handpick a candidate for a coveted state legislature seat.

Further, The Daily Beast discovered in October that Hoboken was among several north Jersey municipalities that had pandemic-era testing arrangements with Fusion Diagnostics, the lab that employed the senator’s co-conspirator wife. The Fusion position now forms part of the government’s case against the power couple.

A Hoboken administrator told The Daily Beast that Fusion was the partner entity to another vendor Jersey City had recommended, and that Bhalla’s team terminated its relationship with both companies once they failed to deliver timely results.

That’s not the only dealing with Jersey City that has caused Bhalla trouble. A former Hoboken health official has accused Bhalla of accommodating a cannabis dispensary that could financially benefit Fulop’s wife in exchange for a contract Jersey City awarded Bhalla’s law firm.

Bhalla has denied wrongdoing while simultaneously denouncing his accuser for alleged corrupt conduct and political motivations.

“These allegations three weeks before an election is kind of laughable,” Bhalla said.

Menendez Jr. has seized on the controversy to cast the mayor as the true mascot for shady backroom politics. But longtimers The Daily Beast spoke to doubted the dueling recriminations would impact the final tally at all.

"This is the thing with the New Jersey Democrats, and it's been for a long time: people assume anyone who runs for office is corrupt,” one party insider told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity to speak bluntly. “You're never going to win an election running around saying the other guy is corrupt and he's a bad guy. They already believe he's a bad guy. People are gonna vote for who they’re gonna vote for.”

But since Bhalla has broken the code of courtesy among the mayors by challenging Menendez, several sources predicted that—if he fails on Tuesday—the county Democratic operation will recruit and fund a candidate next year to oust him from Hoboken City Hall.

After all, if those who interfered in the machine’s functions went unpunished, the operation would risk breaking down and losing influence in the state relative to similar Democratic organizations in Newark and South Jersey. Less influence would mean a reduced role in electing future governors and senators, and that would mean fewer dollars pouring down from the upper echelons of government.

Bhalla told The Daily Beast that he’s focused on the present election to the House and nothing more. Still, he argued that even if he loses, the people of the district have already won a small victory by getting a say in who represents them in Congress at all.

“This election was not a coronation like we had two years ago. The congressman had to earn his victory if he wins,” the mayor said. “That there was an election was a healthy sign for democracy in New Jersey.”

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