CAPE MAY — An eagle-eyed Curtis Bashaw was walking on a recent weekday through Congress Hall, one of the hotels he owns in this farthest of South Jersey seaside towns.
Revelers from a midday wedding party were swilling their cocktails, then spilled some booze right in front of Bashaw, the Republican nominee in this year’s U.S. Senate race.
He may have his hands full campaigning, but in a flash, Bashaw cleaned up the mess in front of him, helping to mop up with a focused gleam in his eyes.
Bashaw, 64, a hotelier and real estate developer who calls himself a business-oriented moderate, wants to apply this kind of hands-on management method he developed in Cape May on behalf of the whole Garden State down in Washington, D.C., at an especially chaotic time.
“This town got rebuilt because we restored things. I’m proud of the micro-economy and the jobs that we’ve created here. We’re not like Goldman Sachs,” Bashaw said during an interview at his Cape May hotel. “I’m in the hospitality business. We wash dishes, we make beds, we take out the trash, we clean the floors. We show empathy for our fellow citizens by making sure that we are working for liberty and prosperity for everybody. I don’t think there’s a better social program than a job.”
Bashaw opposes Rep. Andy Kim (D-03) in November in the race to succeed Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat who resigned in disgrace from the Senate on August 20 following his July conviction on federal corruption charges. Menendez had intended to seek reelection as an independent in November, but suspended that campaign earlier this month.
Bashaw faces a historically uphill battle. Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate race in New Jersey since the state reelected Sen. Clifford Case in 1972.
But upheaval is the current operative word in both state and national politics. Trump, spared. Biden, retiring. Harris, ascendant. Menendez, convicted. The county line, on its last legs.
While aware of the political mayhem in his midst, Bashaw said he is trying to run on traditional Republican themes, like less governmental regulation to spur economic growth.
Asked about his rival’s biggest policy or political flaw, Bashaw cited Kim’s career track, saying it has little in common with aspiring, middle-class small business owners and working people. Kim has worked at the U.S. State Department and served as a U.S. National Security Council official.
“He has been an academic success. He went to great schools, has a really good pedigree, and then he’s been in the bureaucracy. He’s gotten a government paycheck pretty much his whole life,” said Bashaw, noting that he regularly signs paychecks for his 1,000-plus employees. “I think people would much prefer a candidate who’s an outsider, a business person that’s lived by a budget, to go to Washington to get some fiscal discipline. I’m the moderate in this race, and he’s the radical.”
On the campaign trail, Kim has crafted a regular-guy persona, often talking about his kids and highlighting that he went to public school. Asked to respond to Bashaw’s characterization of his opponent, Kim campaign spokeswoman Katey Sabo countered that Bashaw is “an out-of-touch multimillionaire.”
“While Andy is on the ground fighting for New Jersey families who are struggling with high housing and health care costs, Curtis is spending millions trying to buy a Senate seat and spending weekends schmoozing with Trump and kissing the ring,” Sabo said.
Bashaw’s wealth is significant. He self-funded his primary campaign with more than $600,000 in personal loans, allowing him to outraise his main GOP primary rival, Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner, by a roughly 3-1 margin.
The shadow of Donald Trump, the national Republican Party’s leader, looms over any GOP candidate, particularly in a presidential election year. Trump has not fared well in New Jersey in the last two presidential elections. Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by a 14-point margin here in 2016. President Joe Biden’s margin over Trump was 16 points in 2020. During this year’s GOP Senate primary, Trump’s endorsement of Serrano Glassner — wife of a former Trump adviser — was not enough for victory. Bashaw bested her by seven points.
Bashaw’s take on Trump is that at a moment when the partisan balance of the Senate is expected to be razor-thin, Bashaw expects the former president’s support and presence on the ballot will help him, not hurt him.
“President Trump is on a mission to keep Kamala Harris from being the next President, and I’m on my mission to win the Senate seat for all New Jerseyans,” Bashaw said. “We have different missions, but we’re on the same team. Donald Trump’s going to get turnout in our state like we haven’t seen in a long time, because there is massive interest in the election. Higher turnout helps us.”
On reproductive rights, while he is avowedly pro-choice, Bashaw also supports the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision called Dobbs, which overturned the watershed 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that provided a constitutional guarantee to abortion rights. Dobbs provides states with the power to individually set their own limits on abortion.
“I’m a pro-choice gay man. I don’t want to be told what to do in my home. I think that people shouldn’t be telling each other what to do about these very intimate things. It’s a woman’s purview to decide what to do with her family,” Bashaw said. “I think there’s probably some people that want to ban it federally, and there are probably some people that want to enshrine it as a right again through the legislative process. The states are working it out. It’s settled law in New Jersey, and New Jersey isn’t going to reverse its abortion rights for its citizens.”
U.S. Senate candidates
Curtis Bashaw (Republican)
Rep. Andy Kim (Democrat)
Kenneth R. Kaplan (Libertarian)
Christina Khalil (Green)
Joanne Kuniansky (Socialist Workers Party)
Patricia G. Mooneyham (Vote Better)
Bashaw draws a sharper and brighter line when it comes to immigration policy. He points to his regular hiring of many immigrants at his Cape May businesses as evidence of empathy, stating that a third of his employees are first- or second-generation Americans. But Bashaw said he believes in limits.
“I am all for immigrants to be legal. I went to see the border, and I stood at an unfinished section of the wall outside of Yuma, Arizona, at three in the morning and watched 60 people walk into our country. It was like queuing up for Space Mountain at Disney World,” Bashaw said. “We have politicized border security. This is creating a situation where New Jerseyans that are independent, Democratic, and Republican are having unknown people come into their communities and take resources from them. It’s a massive concern in our polling, and it was the No. 1 issue.
“The answer is to secure the border and have real immigration reform,” Bashaw added. “I lock my house at night when I go to bed, and I don’t leave my back door wide open for people to walk in. That shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
Kim gained notoriety after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol when he was photographed cleaning up the mess left by pro-Trump protestors who trashed the building. Bashaw said he, too, wants to get to work in D.C.
“I’m not afraid to scrub the floor and clean up the mess,” Bashaw said. “We’re clearly in uncharted territory, and this is an unusual cycle …New Jersey is in play.”
This article was originally published by a newjerseymonitor.com . Read the Original article here. .