Democrats are conveniently forgetting about Bob Menendez during their anti-corruption push

A cloud of corruption is settling around President Trump's former confidantes, and Democrats are stoked. So stoked, they seem to have forgotten a potential problem of their own.

Amid the storm of Paul Manafort's guilty verdicts and Michael Cohen's guilty pleas, Quinnipiac University released a poll Wednesday surveying New Jersey voters. The poll shows incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democratic senator who previously escaped corruption charges, inching closer to losing his seat in November's midterms.

Quinnipiac's poll reveals that 43 percent of registered voters would vote for Menendez today — a relatively narrow 6-point lead over his Republican competitor Bob Hugin, given Menendez's traditionally safely blue constituency. Just five months ago, a Quinnipiac poll gave Menendez a 17-point lead over Hugin.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Meanwhile, Democrats have been trying to tie Trump-supporting candidates to corruption associated with the president's administration. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) conveniently debuted an anti-corruption bill Tuesday, just before Manafort and Cohen's courtroom appearances. But their push seems to be having unintended consequences on Menendez, who was indicted in 2015 on federal corruption charges, accused of using his Senate seat to benefit a friend in exchange for private jet rides and campaign donations.

Menendez's charges were dismissed earlier this year after a mistrial, but he still got "severely admonished" by the Senate Ethics Committee in an April letter. It's since been re-election season as usual for Menendez — though he probably didn't expect to fight so hard in a state that hasn't elected a Republican senator since 1954.

For Wednesday's poll, Quinnipiac surveyed 908 registered New Jersey voters over the phone from Aug. 15-20. The poll has a 4.6-point margin of error. Read more results here.