70% of NJ residents want Bob Menendez to quit: poll

Nearly three-quarters of New Jersey residents want Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez to resign following his indictment on federal bribery and illegal foreign lobbying charges.

A Fairleigh Dickinson University survey found Thursday that 70% of Garden State residents want Menendez, 69, out before the end of his third term in January 2025.

Just 16% said he should remain in office.

The poll also found that 80% of Republicans favor the senator stepping down, along with 71% of Democrats and 67% of independents.

Young and black New Jersey residents are more likely to say Menendez should stay put — though only 25% of the latter group said he should stay on.

Notably, while Menendez has claimed racial motivations among his political enemies, 71% of Hispanics say the Cuban-American lawmaker should resign.

“Menendez has been able to weather charges in the past,” said Dan Cassino, a FDU government and politics professor who led the polling. “But this time, it just doesn’t seem like he has any real support left.” 

A majority of survey respondents also said that New Jersey politicians are either “very corrupt” or “somewhat” corrupt, with only 9% saying that those who hold public office are “not at all” corrupt.

The Fairleigh Dickinson poll showed that 54% of New Jersey residents said they were “almost certain” to vote in state legislative elections next month when the Menendez indictment was mentioned, while just 47% gave the same response when it was not.

One in five independent voters (20%) also favor Republican candidates when the Menendez charges are brought up by questioners, while just 12% favor the GOP when the indictment is not mentioned.

However, 79% of Democrats said that they would support their party’s candidate once the Menendez indictment had been brought up, compared to 73% who said they would back their party when the charges were not mentioned.

Democratic candidates in New Jersey also lead on the generic ballot by 10 percentage points (38% to 28%) when the senator’s legal troubles are mentioned and six percentage points (37% to 31%) when they are not.

“Thinking about Menendez makes less partisan voters more likely to say that they’re going to vote Republican,” Cassino added. “The question is whether those voters are going to bother to show up in what’s normally a very low turnout election.”

The Garden State Democrat, who is running for re-election next year, was also indicted in 2015 on corruption charges after he allegedly used his political influence to help a Florida eye surgeon in exchange for gifts and campaign contributions.

That case ended in a hung jury in 2017.

Menendez was indicted again, along with his wife, Nadine, on Sept. 22 for allegedly taking bribes from three wealthy New Jersey businessmen in exchange for 13 gold bars, $486,461 in cash and a 2019 Mercedes-Benz C-Class convertible, among other items.

The FBI raided the Democratic senator’s home in June 2022 and found what prosecutors call “the fruits” of his corrupt bribery agreement with the businessmen: Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe.

The Menendezes also face charges of corruption by leveraging the senator’s chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to aid the government of Egypt, including allegedly lobbying his colleagues to unfreeze $300 million in military aid.

On Oct. 12, Menendez and his wife were hit with a superseding indictment for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act in their dealings with Egyptian officials.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is retiring at the end of his current term next year, has been elevated to chairman of the committee — even as Menendez refuses to resign and says he will fight the charges in federal court.

The senator’s legal defense fund raked in $274,500 in the third quarter of this year, powered by longtime New Jersey Democratic donors to his campaigns and previous legal defense fund.

On Wednesday, Menendez was barred from attending a classified briefing on the war between Israel and Hamas — following jeers from Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman about his alleged collusion with Egypt.

The Fairleigh-Dickinson survey, which was conducted between Oct. 6 and Oct. 14, polled 813 New Jersey residents by telephone interviews or text-to-web surveys sent to cell phones.

It had a plus-or-minus 3.5% margin of error.