TRENTON, NJ (AP) – Southern New Jersey Developer Nomination of Curtis Bashaw to the Senate on Donald Trump’s preferred candidate in Tuesday’s Republican primary and the possibility that has Sen. Bob Menendez besieged independent campaign The Democratic divisions may have fueled new GOP hopes that they can put a reliably blue seat in the New Jersey Senate into play this fall.
It’s a fight national Democrats didn’t anticipate, but it’s one they’ll have to win if they hope to maintain their position. control of the US Senate, very divided.
Bashaw, 64, a hotel developer and political newcomer who lives with her husband in the Victorian resort town of Cape May, appears ready to move away from the right-wing politics of the Republican primary in a state where Republicans have not won the elections. for the Senate in 52 years. He defeated Trump-backed Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner on Tuesday and will face Democratic Rep. Andy Kim in the general election.
Kim, who has shown a knack for holding his own in the turbulent world of New Jersey politics, easily won the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary. Menendez, a lifelong Democrat, ran as an independent in the fall, but is currently in federal court in New York on corruption charges. He pleaded not guilty.
Democrats can ill afford a close — or costly — contest in a state they long thought was safe.
Republicans hope Bashaw will be the candidate who breaks the Democratic wall. Republican Sen. Mike Testa supported Bashaw in the primary, citing his background as a businessman and political outsider and saying he was the only candidate capable of winning in November.
Bashaw has other advantages for the Republican Party: He has invested nearly $1 million in his own campaign so far, according to Federal Election Commission records, and although he supports Trump, he has made a distinction between Trump’s efforts to win back the White House and his Senate campaign. in New Jersey. Republicans lost ground there during Trump’s single term in the White House, at one point holding just one seat in the state’s 12 congressional district delegation.
“There are different missions. We’re on the same team,” Bashaw said of his and Trump’s campaign. “New Jerseyans want a positive, hopeful message from someone who has done things. And I think that’s why our campaign resonates. And I think that’s why the Republicans have a chance, for the first time in 50 years, to take back a seat.”
Kim has become a formidable political power within the state’s dominant party.
Returning to his home state in 2018 after serving as national security official in the Obama administration, Kim defeated a Republican incumbent in 2018, then won again in the Republican-leaning district two years later. He was re-elected in a newly drawn district in 2022.
His Senate campaign relied on the month of September indictment against Menendezwho claimed he and his wife took gold bars and cash in exchange for helping businessmen strike lucrative deals with foreigners…
