New Jersey Senate Republican candidate Bob Hugin slammed Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in a campaign ad this week over allegations that the senator had sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.
Hugin’s campaign released a new ad which details how the FBI probed allegations that Menendez engaged in sexual misconduct while in the Dominican Republic.
The narrator in the ad said:
It’s right here in this shocking FBI affidavit. President Obama’s Justice Department had evidence that for several years, Senator Menendez had been traveling to the Dominican Republic to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes – some of whom were minors.
Menendez campaign spokesman Steve Sandberg called the ad a “disgraceful act” in a statement to the New Jersey Star-Ledger.
Sandberg said, “It is clear that Bob Hugin will say, do and spend whatever he wants to try to deceive New Jersey voters and buy a Senate seat.”
“This is a disgraceful act by a desperate man,” the spokesman added. “They are lies and he knows it.”
Prosecutors declined to charge Sen. Menendez regarding the prostitution claims; however, they did pursue a bribery case against the New Jersey Democrat. The court declared a mistrial last year after they failed to reach a verdict.
Breitbart News documented how Sen. Menendez, along with his friend and political donor Dr. Salmon Melgen, were both indicted on public corruption charges in 2015 by the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ). Even though Menendez’s case was declared a mistrial, Dr. Melgen was convicted on 67 felony counts of Medicare fraud in April 2017. The Obama DOJ released a report in 2015, which detailed how they found “corroborating evidence” that Sen. Menendez and Democrat mega-donor Dr. Salomon Melgen had sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.
“Presented with specific, corroborated allegations that defendants Menendez and Melgen had sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, the Government responsibly and dutifully investigated those serious allegations,” the DOJ wrote.
The new Hugin ad arises as a Quinnipiac poll found that Sen. Menendez leads Hugin by seven points—51 to 44 percent—in the heated New Jersey Senate race. Five percent of likely voters remain undecided about the Senate race, although ten percent of voters said that they could change their mind before election day, which would allow for Hugin to gain more ground before November 6.
The Quinnipiac poll found that Menendez has terrible favorability ratings in the garden state. Fifty-two percent of New Jerseyans disapprove of the incumbent Democrat, while only 36 percent of voters have a favorable view of the senator. In contrast, Hugin has a net positive favorability rating, with 39 percent favorability, 30 percent who have a negative view of the Republican, and 28 percent who do not have enough information about the Senate candidate to form an opinion.
Mary Snow, a polling analyst for Quinnipiac University, said that Hugin needs to win over undecided voters to win the New Jersey Senate seat.
“The question for Bob Hugin is: can he win over those voters who say they are undecided or are backing Menendez and indicate they may change their mind?”
“It will come down to how he defines himself in these last few weeks before Election Day as nearly 30 percent of voters say they haven’t heard enough about him to form an opinion of him,” Snow added.
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