In NJ race to replace Sen. Menendez, MAGA and moderate Republicans seek the GOP nod

The Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Menendez features a familiar political divide.

A Donald Trump supporter is leaning on her MAGA credentials in New Jersey, a state that resoundingly rejected the ex-president in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. And she’s vying for the GOP nomination against a more moderate candidate who could be much better positioned to appeal to the state’s 2.4 million independent voters in November’s election.

The moderate Cape May businessman Curtis Bashaw has raised more money and won the backing from 14 of the 19 county Republican organizations that have made endorsements in the race. But in a low-turnout primary, Christine Serrano Glassner, the mayor of Mendham Borough, has the benefit of Trump’s endorsement. And she's standing by Trump even after Thursday's hush-money trial verdict that made him the first former U.S. president ever to be convicted of a crime, predicting on X that the "politicized verdict" would be overturned on appeal.

The winner of the race will face a decades-old problem for conservatives in New Jersey, where Democrats vastly outnumber registered Republicans. Conservative candidates can win statewide races, but only with support from independent voters, who make up close to the same percentage of the electorate as Democrats. And Bashaw and Serrano Glassner are just the latest Republicans to face a daunting challenge: The GOP hasn’t won a Senate seat since 1972.

“Christine Serrano Glasser is unapologetically MAGA, unapologetically Trump – she and her husband [a former Trump campaign official] have been ardent supporters of his for a long time,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider University's Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.

Serrano Glassner said during a debate in April that she would have voted against certifying the 2020 election results.

“And so that's really a problematic position for a lot of New Jerseyans, but it's one that she thinks is going to get her through this primary with MAGA Republicans coming out to vote for her,” Rasmussen said.

Serrano Glassner didn’t reply to repeated requests from Gothamist for an interview. Her website offers a mix of mainstream Republican ideas and MAGA priorities. She says she will fight inflation by reining in taxes and spending; protect Social Security; encourage free-market competition in health care costs by making bills more transparent; and fight crime by better-funding law enforcement and opposing the “rogue prosecutors” she says are “handing out ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards to violent criminals, illegal aliens and serial offenders.”

Serrano Glassner has criticized Bashaw as pretending to be for Trump, because he supported former Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2024, and was not a Trump supporter until recently. He has now endorsed the former president, but is walking a line between the Trump and moderate wings of the party by not describing himself as a “Trump Republican.”

“I'm a Curtis Bashaw Republican. I'm running for New Jersey first,” Bashaw said in an interview with Gothamist. “Our mission is to take back the Senate seat. Donald Trump is running to make sure that the Biden administration is retired and to take back the country. So we have slightly different missions, but we are teammates.”

Bashaw has raised three times as much as Serrano Glassner. As of their latest filings with the Federal Election Commission, Bashaw had raised $1.42 million, while Serrano Glassner raised $474,906. Two other candidates, Albert Harshaw and Justin Murphy, are listed on the ballot but have raised little or no money.

Bashaw, 64, first became prominent in Cape May business circles decades ago, when his company contributed to the resort town's revitalization by renovating historic hotels, including Congress Hall and the Virginia Hotel. Bashaw served on the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and the board of directors of Stockton University.

Bashaw said his politics are in line with New Jersey conservatives who think the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left. He opposes criticism of policing and the state’s bail reform laws, which allow anyone charged with a nonviolent crime to avoid jail unless and until they are convicted. He also calls for a more secure border.

“The other lightning rod issue that's creating a grassroots movement in our state is this issue of parental rights, where schools are keeping secrets from parents about their children,” Bashaw said. He’s referring to a debate among parent activists who often call for discussions and books about sex, sexuality and LGBTQ+ issues to be removed from school curricula and libraries, and who argue against policies that they say exclude parents from decisions about how to address their children's sexual or gender identities.

But Bashaw’s pronouncement in support of the issue may not earn him much support from some elements of the parental rights movement.

“Curtis is married to a man, and he is proud of it,” said a post this week by the administrator of a 6,000-member Facebook group called Protect Your Children NJ, in an endorsement of Serrano Glassner. It also criticized him for donating to Democrats, and claimed Republicans endorsing him at county conventions didn’t know what the post called the “disturbing facts” about him.

Bashaw’s marriage to his husband is mentioned on his campaign website, albeit at the end of a long biography. His campaign said it wouldn’t dignify the Facebook post with a response.

Serrano Glassner’s husband was the chief operating officer and deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump from 2015 to 2020. Her website proclaims her support of Trump prominently. The homepage mentions the former president five times, and Trump is mentioned four times on the issues page.

“That’s her lane and she will stick with Trump through and through,” Rasmussen said.

Bashaw, on the other hand, said he will seek the support of independents and moderates.

“I do think that Bashaw is looking ahead to November. He understands that he's going to have to make that pivot,” Rasmussen said.

The question, though, is whether he will be able to successfully appeal to the center for the general election. Rasmussen points out the success the likely Democratic candidate, Andy Kim, has beaten Republicans in the last three congressional elections.

“The question is, will Andy Kim let him get away with that, given that he has announced his support for Trump?” Rasmussen said. “The Kim campaign is not going to let him get off the mat that easily, they're going to hold him to that.”