Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) continues to have a decent lead in his reelection battle in spite of facing a big-spending opponent who’s hammered on Menendez’s ethical issues, according to a pair of new polls.
Quinnipiac University, the gold standard for New Jersey polling, released a new poll Wednesday that found Menendez leading businessman Bob Hugin by 53 percent to 42 percent. And Fairleigh Dickinson University, another reputable pollster, found Menendez up by 43 percent to 37 percent.
There’d been some chatter about a survey from Stockton University, another local pollster, who’d found Menendez leading by just 2 points that came out last week — but that pollster doesn’t have as long a track record.
Some recent private polling of the race has Menendez up in the high single digits, splitting the difference between the two new polls.
It seems that Menendez’s ethics issues continue to dog him, but that New Jersey’s blue tilt and the building blue wave will be enough to keep Democrats from having to worry too much about him — or diverting too many resources to shore him up at the expense of the races they hope could yield them the Senate majority.
