With Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) facing the fight for his political life in next month’s Democratic primary against Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, his allies at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) announced today that they will provide the freshman congressman with some major outside support.
CHC BOLD PAC, the caucus’s campaign arm, is spending $500,000 to aid Menendez, much of which will go towards airing a bilingual pair of ads touting him as an effective congressman for the 8th district and a champion for working people. The investment includes TV ads, digital ads, and mail, and is “tailored specifically to the Latino majority in the district.”
“Congressman Rob Menendez is taking care of New Jersey families,” the English-language ad’s narrator says. “Menendez is protecting Medicare and Social Security so seniors can age with dignity. He’s fighting to lower prescription drug costs and expand the child tax credit, making childcare more affordable, so families can breathe a little easier. Rob Menendez, working every day to lower costs and protect what matters to our families.”
The Spanish-language ad is largely the same, but with one added detail: it notes that Menendez is New Jersey’s only Hispanic House member, something which goes unmentioned by the English-language ad.
Indeed, if Menendez loses, it would be the first time in three decades that New Jersey would lack a Hispanic member of the House. That raises the stakes for a group like BOLD PAC, which is primarily concerned with getting as many Hispanic Democrats elected to Congress as possible.
Menendez was first elected in 2022, succeeding Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York) in the Hudson County-based 8th district. Prior to arriving in Congress, Menendez’s only notable position was as an appointed member of the Port Authority Board of Commissioners – but he got universal party support for the seat thanks in no small part to the identity of his father, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez.
That connection has now become a liability, however, thanks to the elder Menendez’s indictment on federal corruption charges. Bhalla’s campaign has focused heavily on Senator Menendez’s ethical woes, tying the two Menendezes together and arguing that voters should send the entire family packing this year.
But the CHC, of which Menendez is an active member, isn’t holding the sins of the father against the son. The caucus’s $500,000 ad buy is a notably large investment for a primary election, and will likely end up comprising a substantial portion of the total money spent in the 8th district this year; as of the end of March, Menendez and Bhalla themselves had spent a combined $1.2 million, though that number has surely grown in the month and a half since then.