(VIDEO) New Jersey voters have two Senate candidate choices per party
New Jersey voters will have two choices each for the Republican and Democratic lines on the Tuesday, June 5, primary ballot for one six-year term seat in the United State Senate.
Democrat U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, of Harrison, seeking a third six-year term, faces a primary challenge from his own party from Lisa McCormick, a community newspaper publisher from Rahway.
On the Republican side, former Celgene Corp. executive Bob Hugin, of Summit, is battling businessman Brian Goldberg, of Livingston, to take on the Democratic primary winner this November.
Brian Goldberg
Republican candidate Goldberg was born in Brooklyn, and grew up in New Jersey, graduating from Freehold High School in 1991. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from UCLA in 1995, then worked in IT until 2001. He then began working as a construction company executive in 2002, a position he still holds today.
In 2004, he served on the Essex County Republican Committee, and served on the West Orange Municipal Budget Advisory Committee from 2009 to 2011. He founded The Empowerment PAC in 2010, and in 2011, served as the Joseph Chiusolo for Freeholder campaign’s treasurer. Republican Goldberg ran in 2014 for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey, but was defeated by Jeff Bell in the primary.
He manages his family’s small business in the decorative concrete industry and said he knows how important a strong job market and thriving economy is to the health of the nation.
“As the recent tax cuts have shown, government can clearly affect the job market and economy through sound fiscal policy,” Goldberg said. “President Trump has also announced a trillion dollar plus infrastructure program which will bring jobs across America. However, with New Jersey’s congressional delegation as it stands, he has made it clear that New Jersey shouldn’t look forward to the jobs associated with that program, already moving the trans Hudson tunnel to the bottom of the project list. If we want to participate in the program, we need to send him a delegation he can work with to promote and support his agenda.”
He said that supporting military, veterans, and law enforcement is one of his core issues.
“The United States cannot afford to lose its strength on the international stage, and we must fully fund efforts to protect democracy across the world,” he said. “I specifically oppose base realignment and closures, and I support brave first responders who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.
Goldberg said he believes the Constitution to be “sacred and immovable,” opposes judicial activism, and, as an NRA member, the right to keep and bear arms.
“We need to take guns out of the hands of criminals, not turn law abiding citizens into criminals because of something they currently possess legally,” he said. “I am unequivocally anti-abortion, and I believe the federal government should defund Planned Parenthood until or unless it divests its abortion practices.”
“New Jersey deserves a leader who is going to stand by them and promote an environment of growth,” Goldberg said.”
Republican candidate Bob Hugin, a multimillionaire pharmaceutical executive, launched his campaign for Senate by saying he was “embarrassed” by the behavior of Democratic incumbent Menendez.
“I have to tell you I am offended by Sen. Menendez’s actions,” Hugin said at an Elks lodge in Springfield in February in response to Menenedez’ corruption trial, according to Politico. “He’s violated the public trust and, at the same time, he’s failed the people of New Jersey.”
Born and raised in New Jersey, Hugin grew up in Union City, received a full scholarship to Princeton University, then joined the United States Marine Corps as an active duty infantry officer from 1976 to 1983.
Hugin later earned his master’s degree in business administration from the Darden School of Graduate Business Administration at the University of Virginia and in 1985, joined J.P. Morgan, rising to be a managing director. He spent the last 19 years as chairman and CEO of the Celgene Corp. and a trustee of the Atlantic Health System for a decade.
Hugin said New Jersey should get its fair share, and that the state should get its fair share. New Jersey is dead last in federal investment it gets back from Washington for the tax dollars sent there annually, he said.
“New Jersey is a high cost state that is becoming increasingly unaffordable,” Hugin said. “Millennials – those aged 18 to 34 – are leaving our state at the highest rate in the country, decimating our state’s future workforce. Seniors and high earners are leaving New Jersey at a rapid pace, taking with them the capital we need to create new enterprises and the tax revenue we need to support critical government functions and charitable giving.”
He said New Jersey is a high-tax state unfairly impacted by the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions and he will fight to eliminate the cap, and make the individual tax cuts permanent.
Robert Menendez
Democratic incumbent Menendez was born in New York City to Cuban immigrants who later moved to a Union City tenement. He received a bachelor’s degree from St. Peter’s College in Jersey City and law degree from Rutgers University in Newark. He lives in Paramus and has two children, Alicia and Robert.
He stepped down from that post in April 2015 upon being indicted on federal corruption charges. The trial ended in a mistrial in November 2017, and prosecutors have decided not to retry. In February, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer reappointed him as ranking member of that committee.
He has championed increased consumer protection and corporate accountability, fairness in lending, affordable housing, and comprehensive approaches to community revitalization, fought for smart growth, jobs for the 21st century and updating our aging transportation system, according to his website.
Menendez has sponsored legislation increasing access to quality, affordable health care, advocated for fairness in the tax code to help middle class families get college educations and be able to retire, and has pushed for trade initiatives to ensure America’s global competitiveness, his website stated.
He said he believes that every child has access to early education, opportunities to attend quality public schools, and affordable secondary education if we support schools, teachers, and parents to encourage young people to build a the skill-set needed to excel in the 21st century economy.
In January, Menendez responded to President Trump’s words in the State of the Union address with these words, quoted on his website.
“We heard the President talk about growing the middle class, but millions of middle class families in New Jersey and across the country are bracing for higher tax bills, and 3.5 million Americans have lost their health care coverage under this Administration’s watch. Menendez said. “In this country, even the most divisive President in history has a First Amendment right to talk about unity and bipartisanship and love. The bottom line is that after a year of erratic leadership, hateful rhetoric, and broken promises, President Trump’s actions in the days ahead will speak louder than words read from tonight’s teleprompter.”
Based on analysis of multiple outside rankings, Menendez is an “average” Democratic member of Congress, meaning he will vote with the Democratic Party on the majority of bills, according to Roll Call.
For more information on Robert Menendez, visit www.menendez.senate.gov.
Lisa McCormick
Democratic challenger McCormick is a mother and small business owner who advocates radical progressive change to address the broken political and economic systems that she said have essentially legalized bribery, permitted overt racial segregation throughout New Jersey and undermined almost all the advances of the 20th century.
A lifelong New Jersey resident, McCormick graduated from J. P. Stevens High School in Edison, studied industrial engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, earned a certificate in office administration from Cittone Institute, and enjoyed a varied career at Schering Plough, Seton Hall, Hewlett Packard, Chanel, and more.
Since 2006, she has owned CMD Media, which publishes the NJ Today community news website formed by combining the Clark Patriot, South Amboy Citizen, Perth Amboy Gazette, the Atom Tabloid, and the News Record, once designated as New Jersey’s oldest weekly newspaper in continuous circulation since 1822.
“Once, Americans could complete a course of free public education, which prepared one to get a 40-hour per week job that paid enough to have a really good life & retire at 60. That is gone now — as people struggle to make ends meet with two or three jobs — but Americans can take it back!”
McCormick supports public campaign funding, term limits, action to curb corruption and restriction on ethical conflicts, would expand free public education from pre-K to college, cut property taxes in half and put an end to racial segregation, and opposes laws prohibiting marijuana use, according to her website. She said she will work to eliminate the corrupt influence of dirty money in politics with an affordable system of fair and clean elections.
“Eliminating political payoffs is the only way to put on a public agenda items such as state-funded child care, paid family leave, universal health insurance, free tuition at public colleges and universities,” she said.
She supports raising the minimum wage to $15 or more and indexing it to the cost of living, said she will vote against any bill that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits, and supports adding trillions of dollars to Social Security’s current surplus by “scrapping the cap” so that millionaires and billionaires pay Social Security taxes on more than just the first $118,500 of their income.
She said she believes in safe, legal abortion, and allowing LGBT couples to marry and receive benefits equal to those of opposite-sex married couples.
“We must restore tax rates on upper income Americans and corporations to levels they were at during the economic ‘boom’ years to reverse the severe growth in the national debt since Republican President Ronald Reagan sparked massive deficit spending with reckless tax cuts for the rich,” she said. “The Reagan and Bush tax cuts have had no positive economic impact, but they have created massive inequality.”
She rejects campaign money from Wall Street and oil company PACs and believes climate change is real and requires immediate action from the government. She supports public investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and opposes the Keystone XL pipeline and all expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, fracking and use.