• NJ-08: New Jersey Rep. Rob Menendez is pushing back on Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla's attempts to link him to his scandal-ridden father, Sen. Bob Menendez, in a new commercial ahead of their June 4 Democratic primary for the dark blue 8th District.
"My opponent wants to run against my father because he's scared to run against me," the congressman tells the audience. "That's on him."
Menendez doesn't say anything more about the senator, who is currently on trial for corruption, or Bhalla, whom he does not mention by name. The incumbent instead argues he's an ardent liberal, declaring, "I'm protecting health care coverage for pre-existing conditions, and I'm defending abortion rights from the MAGA Republicans."
The younger Menendez has not been implicated in any of his father's alleged crimes, but that hasn't deterred Bhalla from arguing that North Jersey voters should fire the "entitled son of corrupt Bob 'Gold Bars' Menendez."
The mayor told the New Jersey Monitor earlier this month that his opponent is a "replication of the same apparatus" of donors and advisors who spent years aiding the senator. "We need to change, to get to a place with people who are not anointed by way of their connections with powerful people, but are elected with the qualifications."
Bhalla's allies at the super PAC America's Promise have spent over $200,000 on digital ads making a similar argument. "Prosecutors say Sen. Menendez took gold bars, a Mercedes, and thousands in bribes in exchange for political favors," declares the narrator, continuing, "But Rob says he strongly believes in his father's integrity and values, and he's refused to give his father's dirty money back."
Rob Menendez has pushed back by insisting that Bhalla was quite happy with his record in office before he decided he was vulnerable. "Ravi used to text me and thank me for what we were doing and what good advocates we were for Hoboken," he told the Monitor. "So clearly, only one thing has changed, and that's the one thing Ravi wants to talk about."
Menendez has also declared that he shouldn't be punished for his father's alleged crimes, an argument that several prominent Democrats agree with. "People should be judged in terms of their own actions," said Rep. Andy Kim, who announced a bid for Bob Menendez's Senate seat just one day after he was indicted.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who has repeatedly called for expelling his indicted colleague, also told Politico last month that he doesn't "have anything against" Rob Menendez. "I don't believe that he was part of all of the depravity and all that kind of sleaze."
Bob Menendez's trial began May 13, and it's generated plenty of headlines. "Defense Blames Senator Menendez's Wife as Bribery Trial Starts," the New York Times titled one of its articles. (The senator's marriage to Rob Menendez's mother, Jane Jacobsen, ended with a 2005 divorce; Bob Menendez later married Nadine Menendez, who was indicted with him last fall.)
However, there may not be a verdict before voters decide the congressman's political fate on June 4. The trial was paused for a week on Tuesday after jurors were trapped in a courthouse elevator, something that happened one day after the jurors were forced out of their regular meeting room because someone left the sink faucets running for the weekend. "Don't all get into one elevator," the judge jokingly warned the jurors as they prepared to leave.
• NV-Sen: Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen on Wednesday debuted her first negative ad against Army veteran Sam Brown, a commercial that comes almost three weeks ahead of a GOP primary where he is the frontrunner. Rosen's narrator declares that Brown "said abortion should be banned without any exceptions for rape or incest," a position he previously called "non-negotiable."
Brown has tried to back away from the stringent anti-abortion positions he voiced during his failed 2014 bid for a seat in the Texas state House and 2022 primary campaign for Nevada's other U.S. Senate seat. Brown told NBC in February that he opposed a national abortion ban in a story where his wife also disclosed that she'd had an abortion before meeting him.
Rosen's team, however, made it clear they weren't going to accept Brown's new stance. They highlighted how he submitted a questionnaire last cycle saying he believed abortion should only be allowed if a mother's life was at risk. Brown's team said in response that the questionnaire was filled out by a staffer who did not have permission to speak for the candidate.
Brown has yet to win the GOP primary, but he looked like the probable nominee even before he released an internal poll this week that showed him easily fending off his nearest foe, former diplomat Jeff Gunter, 52-14. Rosen seems to agree that it's better to begin attacking Brown three weeks early than to wait for him to defeat Gunter and another longshot opponent, 2022 secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant.
• OK-04: Defending Main Street has launched what Punchbowl News reports is a $500,000 ad buy to help Rep. Tom Cole fend off self-funder Paul Bondar in an unexpectedly expensive June 18 Republican primary. The super PAC, which supports candidates like Cole who are close to the House GOP leadership, attacks Bondar as a wealthy outsider from Texas who wants to buy a House seat in Oklahoma.
The ad features a clip where KFOR reporter Spencer Humphrey asks Bondar if he was doing their video interview from Texas, to which the challenger responds, "I'm in an office right now." Humphrey doesn't accept that answer and inquires, "Is that office in Texas?" After first deflecting, Bondar acknowledges, "No, I'm not in Oklahoma right now."
What the commercial does not include, likely owing to time limitations, is the 10 seconds of silence that followed when Humphrey first asked if the candidate was in Texas. "You're … you're … you're cutting out for me," Bondar finally said before eventually acknowledging he wasn't in Oklahoma.
• NH-Gov: The conservative site NH Journal has released a survey from Praecones Analytica that shows former Sen. Kelly Ayotte beating former state Senate President Chuck Morse 50-28 in the September primary to succeed their fellow Republican, retiring Gov. Chris Sununu. Praecones has conducted several polls of New Hampshire for this outlet since 2019, but we haven't seen much from them for downballot races.
This is the first survey that anyone has publicized of the GOP primary since January when a YouGov poll for UMass Lowell gave Ayotte a similar 54-22 edge.