In New Jersey’s 8th Congressional District, Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. has turned politics—the family business—into the art of audacious grift.
If anyone believes there is daylight between the disgraced former senator now sitting in federal prison and the congressman fighting to keep his seat, they have not been watching where the money flows.
The apple has not simply fallen from the tree. It has rolled straight to the cash counters of the same special interests his opponent condemns.
Consider who is funding the effort to keep the Menendez political dynasty alive. It is not the working families of Newark, Jersey City, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Union City, and Hoboken.
It is a coalition of AIPAC-aligned donors, cryptocurrency billionaires, and Silicon Valley artificial intelligence investors. Many of the same wealthy interests that helped finance Donald Trump’s political resurgence are now spending heavily to protect a Democrat who presents himself as part of the resistance.
Start with cryptocurrency money.
In 2022, a super PAC tied to former crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried spent roughly $250,000 supporting Menendez’s first congressional campaign. Bankman-Fried has since been convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud tied to the collapse of FTX and the theft of billions of dollars from customers.
Menendez accepted the support anyway.
Now the crypto industry is again spending heavily to defend him.
Industry-backed super PACs have already poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into efforts supporting the congressman, while crypto political organizations nationally are sitting on massive war chests worth hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it connected to political networks aligned with Trump.
The influence campaign does not stop with cryptocurrency.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, endorsed Menendez just as it stood behind his father even after the former senator was indicted on federal corruption charges tied to Egypt and Qatar.
AIPAC has also endorsed more than 100 Republican election deniers while positioning itself as a kingmaker in Democratic primaries. It is now one of the major outside forces backing Menendez’s campaign.
Then there is the AI industry.
Think Big, a super PAC aligned with Silicon Valley’s AI elite that says it supports “Democratic candidates dedicated to advancing AI innovation in America,” recently reported nearly $662,000 in expenditures aimed at helping Menendez win his primary.
Menendez earned the group’s backing after supporting legislation signed by President Donald Trump.
Menendez sits on a congressional committee with oversight responsibilities involving artificial intelligence policy, making him an attractive target for an industry eager to shape federal regulation.
Despite publicly arguing that funding ICE and DHS without guardrails went in the “wrong direction,” Menendez ultimately voted in favor of H.R. 2882, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, which provided billions of dollars to both agencies.
Although he claimed to be a vocal critic of ICE, who introduced amendments to bar funds from being used in detention facilities, and has led efforts to investigate what he describes as “secret ghost flights” and overreach by ICE agents, Menendez voted for the 2024 federal spending package that provided $61.8 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including billions more for ICE enforcement operations, detention, and deportation capacity, $2.5 billion for Homeland Security Investigations, and hundreds of millions for expanded border surveillance technology under Trump.
The defense industry and billionaire political donors are woven into the same network of influence.
Defense contractors contributed nearly $1.8 million to Trump during the 2024 election cycle. At the same time, wealthy technology investors tied to defense and surveillance firms, including prominent Trump supporters linked to Palantir and other Silicon Valley ventures, have become major players in the same political ecosystem now helping Menendez.
A politician cannot credibly claim to oppose Trumpism while relying on many of the same billionaire networks financing Trump’s movement.
That contradiction sits at the center of Menendez’s campaign.
The congressman runs advertisements warning that “no one is safe” in Trump’s America and promising he will “never bend the knee,” but he may as well be wiping off his chin after following the weak institutional leadership of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Menendez has utterly failed to stop Trump, repair the economy, or achieve meaningful progress to save the world from unprecedented existential dangers.
Yet his campaign benefits from donors and super PACs tied to the same wealthy interests that helped fuel Trump’s return to power.
It is political theater in its purest form: a well-connected heir to a political machine presenting himself as a populist outsider while billionaires and special interests finance the operation behind the scenes.
His opponent, Mussab Ali, a former Jersey City school board president, has raised far less money while pledging not to accept corporate PAC contributions.
Ali has repeatedly challenged Menendez to reject what he calls “billionaire MAGA donors” connected to AIPAC and other outside spending groups.
Menendez has shown little interest in doing so.
The 8th Congressional District race might have unfolded along key fault lines animating the Democratic Party, from the influence of special interest groups to Israel and its genocide in Gaza. The incumbent’s financial advantage has obliterated a clear contest between the party’s progressive and corporate-controlled moderate wings.
Ali, who is running on a platform that includes Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and rejecting corporate PAC money, has been endorsed by U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ro Khanna, as well as Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Ali has received backing from prominent national progressive organizations like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, March On PAC, Run for Something, and Peace Action; however, his campaign has been overlooked by such groups as Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, and the Sunrise Movement.
A Harvard Law graduate, Ali previously made history as the youngest-ever president of the Jersey City Board of Education. During his tenure, he was noted for raising teacher salaries, eliminating student lunch debt, and successfully lobbying for Eid and halal lunches in schools.
Menendez has supported key parts of Donald Trump’s agenda. He voted with Trump on his corrupt cryptocurrency bill, the Genius Act, allowing Trump and his family to profit off Crypto while in office.
Menendez also voted for more military funding to Israel again and again, even when those weapons were used in the genocide in Gaza. The Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been formally accused of genocide in legal proceedings, and several major international bodies have published findings supporting claims of genocidal acts and intent.
B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, two major Israeli human rights organizations, unequivocally recognized that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. On April 20, 2024, Menendez voted for the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which provided $26 billion to Israel.
Menendez voted against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s proposed amendment to cut $500 million from Israeli military funding on July 18, 2025. He also supported legislation that codified President Donald Trump’s sanctions against International Criminal Court officials who attempted to hold Israel accountable for war crimes committed in Gaza.
This is more than a betrayal of the district. It is an insult to voters who watched ‘Gold Bar Bob’ Menendez’s political career collapse under the weight of corruption scandals and federal bribery convictions.
Menendez’s father is a disgraced former senator who went to prison because prosecutors proved he sold the power of his office to wealthy benefactors.
His son now seeks re-election under a cloud of massive independent expenditures and super PAC spending that technically operate outside campaign coordination rules but serve the same practical purpose: protecting political power through money.
Voters in New Jersey’s 8th District face a clear decision on June 2.
They can support the heir to a political dynasty consumed by scandal and financed by many of the same billionaire interests backing Trump’s political machine. Or they can choose a candidate who rejects corporate PAC money entirely.
But voters should not pretend that supporting Rob Menendez is somehow a vote against Trumpism.
In many ways, it is a vote for the same donor class that made Trump possible in the first place.
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