Poll: Majority of NJ voters thinks Menendez should resign

A slim majority of New Jersey voters thinks Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who faces federal corruption charges, should resign, according to a new poll.

Fifty-two percent of people surveyed for a new Quinnipiac University poll think the state’s senior senator should give up his seat, while 39 percent said he should not.

{mosads}Democrats in the state are less interested in seeing Menendez resign. Forty-six percent said he should resign, and 44 percent said he should stay in office.

The poll also found that Menendez is seen as untrustworthy. Fifty-four percent of voters said he is not honest and trustworthy, while 23 percent said that he can be trusted.

Prosecutors allege Menendez used his office to advance the business interests of Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist and Menendez donor who has also been charged.

Menendez has denied the allegations and vowed to stay in the upper chamber. He has, however, temporarily given up his ranking member position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Forty-five percent of voters think Menendez did something illegal, while 38 percent believes what he did was unethical but not illegal.

Only 8 percent says he did not do anything that was seriously wrong.

The charges — which were preceded by press reports that federal investigators were closing in on the senator — seem to have taken a toll on Menendez’s job approval rating.

Thirty-five percent approves of the job he is doing, while 46 percent disapproves. In January, a Quinnipiac poll found that voters approved of his job performance by a 13-percentage-point margin.

The poll had a sample of 1,428 registered New Jersey voters and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.6 percentage points. It was conducted between April 9 and 14.