'Deja vu': Analyst weighs whether NJ Dems will challenge Menendez or back him — again

NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki explained Friday what United States Senator Bob Menendez's new indictment on bribery charges means for New Jersey Democratic lawmakers and voters.

During Friday's episode of MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, Mitchell noted, "The White House is losing a very powerful foreign relations chairman," but added "there are others who can step in" such as U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), who's "leaving after this term."

"None with the experience of getting legislation through that Menendez has," Mitchell explained.

Kornacki replied, "There's just a lot of déjà vu here in terms of what happened the last time Menendez was indicted. And I think the key, politically, when you look back to that, first of all, he was indicted in 2015, there was a hung jury in 2017, in early 2018 they had the charges formally dismissed. He was also severely reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee as he sought re-election. Republicans believed in 2018 that this was a winnable race for them because Menendez's unpopularity in New Jersey was through the roof even after this trial. But New Jersey proved to be such a through blue state, a state where the voters really had a strong dictate for Donald Trump, and essentially the voters delivered a message, 'We don't like Bob Menendez, but we are more desirous of voting against Trump and the Republicans.'"

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He continued, "So Menendez won by 11 points in 2018, and with every major Democrat standing behind him. I think that, politically, is the key question. You have Menendez's statement out this morning here. It looks like he is intending to plow forward and say, 'I've beaten this once before. I'm going to beat it again.' It looks like if he runs, this will be playing out during the campaign. What does the Democratic Governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy do? Does he issue a statement standing behind Bob Menendez? Last time, on the first day of the trial, sitting right behind Bob Menendez in federal court was his fellow [U.S. Senator] Cory Booker (D-NJ). Cory Booker made a major show of standing with Menendez through the trial. Does Cory Booker come out today and say, 'I'm standing with Menendez again?'"

Kornacki emphasized, "Very interesting that the last time Menendez ran, all the major Democratic leaders stood behind him. A no-name Democrat with no money and no name recognition got her name on the primary ballot, and she got nearly 40 percent of the vote against Menendez in 2018. It seemed that Democratic primary voters then were sending a signal that they wanted to pick somebody besides Menendez. Forty percent for somebody they had never even heard of. He ended up winning obviously, and winning in the fall, but there are a lot of ambitious Democrats may look back at that 2018 primary and say, 'This is now happening again, this is my chance.' You think of Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ 11th District) — you think of Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ 5th District), do they look at this here today and see a potential opportunity and challenge Menendez even if he goes forward and runs?"

Watch the video below or at this link.

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