Menendez +2 (NJ, Gravis)

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

I hope Menendez wins by an embarrassing margin loses. He deserves to be embarrassed. is an embarrassment to the US Senate.

FTFY

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

He has ethical issues

Congratulations on your nomination for the "Understatement of the year" award!

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

As long as it wasn’t Roy Moore-type allegations against him, I’d enthusiastically vote for Menendez in this race. This election is a referendum on Trump, therefore you need to vote for the party, not the person. I’d vote for Rod Blagojevich or Edwin Edwards before I’d vote Republican in any congressional race this year.

That's not necessarily true. I would rather support the candidate that has at least some ethics over the one that does not. I'm not a straight-ticket voter who votes based purely on party identification. I look at the candidates, evaluate their relative merits, and vote accordingly.

This is really the only way to properly vote - take the candidates that you're given, weight their positions in terms of personal importance and vote for the least bad option. In most cases, this exercise will result a vote for the candidate of the party where the voter most often leans, but for voters with less traditional priorities or candidates with ethical issues, the calculus is less straightforward. On Menendez, I would - without hesitation - cast a Hugin vote in New Jersey because Bribery Bob is that odious. Presumably, based on this poll, a fair number of left-leaning indies feel the same way.

And if it gets too close for comfort and the national party has to deploy resources to HEAVEN FORBID New Jersey to defend a corrupt senator in a so-called blue wave year, it becomes yet another piece of evidence that the DNC does not have core principles the way a political party should.

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

As long as it wasn’t Roy Moore-type allegations against him, I’d enthusiastically vote for Menendez in this race. This election is a referendum on Trump, therefore you need to vote for the party, not the person. I’d vote for Rod Blagojevich or Edwin Edwards before I’d vote Republican in any congressional race this year.

That's not necessarily true. I would rather support the candidate that has at least some ethics over the one that does not. I'm not a straight-ticket voter who votes based purely on party identification. I look at the candidates, evaluate their relative merits, and vote accordingly.

This is really the only way to properly vote - take the candidates that you're given, weight their positions in terms of personal importance and vote for the least bad option. In most cases, this exercise will result a vote for the candidate of the party where the voter most often leans, but for voters with less traditional priorities or candidates with ethical issues, the calculus is less straightforward. On Menendez, I would - without hesitation - cast a Hugin vote in New Jersey because Bribery Bob is that odious. Presumably, based on this poll, a fair number of left-leaning indies feel the same way.

And if it gets too close for comfort and the national party has to deploy resources to HEAVEN FORBID New Jersey to defend a corrupt senator in a so-called blue wave year, it becomes yet another piece of evidence that the DNC does not have core principles the way a political party should.

And Hugin, from what I've been told, seems to have moderate views on social issues. But unfortunately, most voters are probably like Wolverine22, in the sense that they will support a candidate no matter what they do, so long as they have an R or D next to their name. That was what happened in Alabama with Roy Moore last year. 91% of Republicans supported him even after the pedophilia allegations came out.

I would assume Hugin has somewhat moderate social views; it'd likely be mandatory for a republican to win in New Jersey with far right social views. I don't know much about his positions, but I'd gather that they probably are somewhat close to my blue state Republican Governor's positions - social moderate / fiscal conservative.

And re: Moore, there's a non-crazy argument to be made that it's more strategically inept to end up with Menendez, as opposed to Moore. It of course goes without saying that morally, Moore's behavior is considered worse by the overwhelming majority of people, but his behavior came to light only after winning his primary. Menendez had been indicted, had the case end in a mistrial, and was severely sanctioned by the full Senate before his primary. And it's not like NJ doesn't have a deep Dem bench. I just fundamentally don't understand the loyalty the party and by extension, the voters, has shown to Menendez, especially when contrasted against Menendez's former colleague from Minnesota.

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

Menendez sucks, but democrats cant afford to lose a single seat if they want to put a check on Trump. You'd be fooling yourself if you think Hugin wouldnt be a rubber stamp for anything Trump wanted and would vote to protect him at every turn. Even Collin's herself votes with the president 80% of the time. So If you care about "corruption, access, campaign finance laws, or anything like that", then the only choice is Menendez.

Edit:

And seriously, its a Gravis poll paid for by Brietbart. This race will not be close, nor should it be. I wish Menendez had lost his primary but for the sake of a better furture, Menendez needs to and will win re-election in November.

But is Menendez's seat absolutely necessary for the Democrats? What if they pickup Nevada and Arizona, and hold the seats in the swing states? What if they pickup Tennessee? It's unfortunate the only thing which could knock Menendez off would be a Roy Moore-type scandal.

I'm assuming we lose either Donnelly, McCaskill or Heitkamp. Maybe we lose all three. There is very little room for error.

There is, but I would rather have a tied Senate then one in which the majority is thanks to some corrupted personage. But that is my personal opinion. It's unfortunate that partisanship is more important than choosing the more ethical and more upright candidate.

Menendez is the more ethical and more upright candidate.

CC: Hofoid house thread.

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

As long as it wasn’t Roy Moore-type allegations against him, I’d enthusiastically vote for Menendez in this race. This election is a referendum on Trump, therefore you need to vote for the party, not the person. I’d vote for Rod Blagojevich or Edwin Edwards before I’d vote Republican in any congressional race this year.

That's not necessarily true. I would rather support the candidate that has at least some ethics over the one that does not. I'm not a straight-ticket voter who votes based purely on party identification. I look at the candidates, evaluate their relative merits, and vote accordingly.

This is really the only way to properly vote - take the candidates that you're given, weight their positions in terms of personal importance and vote for the least bad option. In most cases, this exercise will result a vote for the candidate of the party where the voter most often leans, but for voters with less traditional priorities or candidates with ethical issues, the calculus is less straightforward. On Menendez, I would - without hesitation - cast a Hugin vote in New Jersey because Bribery Bob is that odious. Presumably, based on this poll, a fair number of left-leaning indies feel the same way.

And if it gets too close for comfort and the national party has to deploy resources to HEAVEN FORBID New Jersey to defend a corrupt senator in a so-called blue wave year, it becomes yet another piece of evidence that the DNC does not have core principles the way a political party should.

And Hugin, from what I've been told, seems to have moderate views on social issues. But unfortunately, most voters are probably like Wolverine22, in the sense that they will support a candidate no matter what they do, so long as they have an R or D next to their name. That was what happened in Alabama with Roy Moore last year. 91% of Republicans supported him even after the pedophilia allegations came out.

I would assume Hugin has somewhat moderate social views; it'd likely be mandatory for a republican to win in New Jersey with far right social views. I don't know much about his positions, but I'd gather that they probably are somewhat close to my blue state Republican Governor's positions - social moderate / fiscal conservative.

And re: Moore, there's a non-crazy argument to be made that it's more strategically inept to end up with Menendez, as opposed to Moore. It of course goes without saying that morally, Moore's behavior is considered worse by the overwhelming majority of people, but his behavior came to light only after winning his primary. Menendez had been indicted, had the case end in a mistrial, and was severely sanctioned by the full Senate before his primary. And it's not like NJ doesn't have a deep Dem bench. I just fundamentally don't understand the loyalty the party and by extension, the voters, has shown to Menendez, especially when contrasted against Menendez's former colleague from Minnesota.

I don't understand the last part, in bold, either. But I think the difference in how these situations were treated was that Minnesota, both at the time the allegations against Al Franken came out, and now, had a Democratic Governor, whereas Chris Christie was still in office while Menendez's corruption trial was underway. Partisan concerns were probably the reason why the Democrats did not apply pressure on Menendez at that time to resign. And once his case ended in a mistrial, they could make the claim that the matter had been litigated, and that it was time to move on. Hopefully, since Menendez will win reelection (unless if he is charged again or sexual allegations on par with Moore's come out), this will be his last term, and he will either retire or be primaried out in 2024.

Respectfully, I just don't agree. Phil Murphy is currently governor and it would've been easy for Menendez to resign under the cloud of scandal a couple of days after Murphy was sworn in. Or he could've foregone re-election entirely and stepped aside for someone else! And realistically, the only reason the trial ended in a mistrial is due to the Court's lax standard in McDonnell for corruption charges. I'm partially jaded and think that the difference is that New Jersey has strong machine politics roots and Menendez was still valuable to the machine, whereas Minnesota has less of a machine tradition and there was less pushback when the national effort formed to oust him.

It's also possible that the Party made a strategic decision that they could survive a corrupt candidate and not a #metoo candidate, but then my response would be to inquire why you'd want either...