Hudson County Republican Committee Chair Jose Arango is praising Bob Hugin as the U.S. senator “that we deserve,” claiming that his notoriously Democratic home county will play a big role in Hugin taking Bob Menendez’s seat.Â
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“We are very lucky that Hudson County native Bob Hugin has stepped up to run a serious, winning campaign to elect a Senator with integrity and New Jersey values that we deserve,” Arango, also the chair of the Jersey City GOP committee, said in a statement.
“I will be working tirelessly with the Hugin campaign, city chairs and county committee people to make sure that Bob gets a vote out of Hudson that enables him to be victorious.”
Although Hudson County is one of the most Democratic battlegrounds in the state, where Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by a 4-to-1 margin in the 2016 presidential race, Arango claims that the HCGOP has registered 10,000 voters since 2010 and that Trump fared better in Hudson than Mitt Romney did.
While the summer hasn’t ended yet, Hugin has been blistering Menendez for months over his corruption trial that ended in a hung jury in November 2017, with the U.S. Department of Justice finally dropping the case in late January.
Menendez has countered by attacking Hugin’s time as the CEO as pharmaceutical giant Celgene, exclaiming that the company repeatedly raised the prices of cancer drugs under his watch – a tactic partially on display in his first TV ad that was released this morning.
Their battle is only expected to get bloodier as the championship rounds lie ahead after Labor Day.
On November 6th, New Jersey voters will head to the polls to pick either Menendez or Hugin to serve out a six-year term in the U.S. Senate.