Menendez Looks to His Base

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EWING TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) dropped by a senior center here on Friday in an attempt to rally his base, as he’ll need a big turnout from liberal-leaning seniors as he attempts to hold off insurgent state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. (R).

It was emblematic of Menendez’s strategy for re-election in the closing days of the campaign. Menendez’s appearance at the senior center followed a rally with students at Rider University earlier in the day. The day before, he appeared with black mayors outside of Newark.

“I’m so proud to have the support of all of these mayors today,” Menendez said on the steps of East Orange City Hall. “Together, on Nov. 7, we’re going to lead the country in a much different direction, and we’re going to move America to much greater heights.”

But while Menendez works the base hard, it is suburban voters who could be the key to the outcome of the election. They tend to vote Democratic in New Jersey — but many are fond of Kean’s father, Tom Kean (R), a popular former governor and chairman of the 9/11 commission.

In a rare departure from his scripted appearances, Menendez chided reporters after the Rider rally for focusing on public opinion polls that have this race in a dead heat. He insisted that his internal campaign tracking has him up 9 points.

But at least a few New Jersey Democrats with their ears to the ground acknowledged that the race is tighter than they’d prefer — and say a Menendez victory depends in large part on a voter turnout machine that they say will be tougher to oil this year, absent the personal largess of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

“I think that the race is closer than it should be,” state Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D) said in an interview, while appearing with Menendez at the senior center in Ewing Township, near Trenton. “At the end of the day, I believe Bob Menendez wins — I know he’s going to win. But he’s got to work very hard to do that.”

Still Shaking the Cup

With Kean’s significant resource disadvantage wiped out last week courtesy of the National Republican Senatorial Committee decision to allocate an additional $3.5 million to the race, Democrats appear to recognize the final week of the campaign could be tough. On Saturday, the Menendez campaign held a conference call urging large Democratic donors and other supporters to max out to the Democrat’s campaign.

The call’s special guest was actor Alec Baldwin, with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy (Mass.), Ken Salazar (Colo.), Tom Carper (Del.) and Jack Reed (R.I.) joining in.

New Jersey leans Democratic, and if Democrats and like-minded independents turn out in force on Nov. 7 — Garden State voters have a history of breaking late for the Democratic candidate — Kean is in trouble.

But in beginning this race with solid, statewide, favorable name identification, courtesy of his father, Kean the younger could ride the lower and unpredictable turnout that often accompanies midterm elections into one of the most unlikely Senate victories of 2006.

Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes (D), who like Watson Coleman and most Democrats attributed Kean’s position in the race to the goodwill engendered by his father (and little else), said Democratic leaders have been preparing for months to counter the possibility of low turnout in traditional party strongholds. In that vein, Menendez appeared Thursday with black mayors, who promised to turn out voters in their communities.