Gold bar Bob Menendez will not run for re-election to Senate in November — but still refuses to quit
Embattled New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez will not run for re-election in November, although he still refuses to hand in his resignation, The Post has learned.
“He will not be running,” a source close to the 70-year-old three-term senator told The Post.
Menendez resigned his powerful position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee following his initial indictment on corruption charges in September.
He faces 18 counts in the Southern District of New York — and stiff competition from a pair of Democratic primary challengers in the Garden State.
Menendez and his wife Nadine, 56, were charged Tuesday in a fresh indictment with lying to federal investigators and obstructing justice, while Menendez was charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Qatar.
That added to charges accusing the couple of accepting gold bars and nearly $500,000 in cash in exchange for favors to New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian government.
The couple have pleaded not guilty to all charges and are scheduled to go on trial in Manhattan in May.
Last week, Menendez suffered a further blow as one of the accused businessmen, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty to seven counts of corruption and agreed to co-operate with federal prosecutors.
In an interview with Forbes published Thursday Menendez said he would not resign, but when asked if he would be running for re-election, he said, “Ah, that’s another question.”
Menendez has been under pressure to resign from both fellow Democrats and Republicans, with progressive Rep. Andy Kim and New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy waiting in the wings to take his place in the deep-blue state.
A Farleigh Dickinson University poll of New Jersey Democrats released last month put the senator on just 9% support in the primary, with Kim on 32% and Murphy — a political neophyte who was previously a registered Republican — on 20%.
On Monday, Murphy won the endorsement of Democrats in Bergen County, the state’s largest.
“He can’t run without creating a two-front battle where both have his career on the line,” said Thomas Anderson, who heads up The Black DC, a good government blog. “It takes massive resources for that and he no longer has the support he once had, looking at his latest financial disclosures for his legal defense fund.”
Menendez raised just under $16,000 in the last few months of 2023, while Murphy raked in $3.2 million and Kim took in $1.8 million, federal filings show.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the first Democrat to call for Menendez to resign after his initial indictment and has demanded his fellow senators take action in the intervening months.
“How much more before we finally expel @SenatorMenendez?” Fetterman wrote on X in January after federal authorities announced yet another new indictment against Menendez, his wife and the three co-conspirators.
“I’m daring Menendez to run for re-election,” Fetterman told CNN after backing Kim earlier this year.
Other Democrats, including Menendez’s fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, have joined the resignation chorus, but have taken no moves to boot their colleague from the chamber.
Other primary candidates include Larry Hamm, a political activist and second-time Senate candidate who leads the People’s Organization for Progress.
Patricia Campos-Medina, a left-wing labor organizer who runs the Worker Institute at Cornell University also plans to enter the race, according to reports.
A spokesperson for Menendez did not return a request for comment Thursday.
