Curtis Bashaw, a Republican hotel owner, is running a long-shot campaign to represent New Jersey in the Senate against Andy Kim, a Democratic congressman.
Curtis Bashaw maneuvers his lanky body through a maze of picnic tables, stopping every few steps to repeat his upbeat introductory pitch to voters waiting for lunch on a recent weekday.
He is a Republican running to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, he tells groups of graying attendees at Bergen County’s annual senior festival. A fiscal conservative, he adds. A hotel owner from Cape May, N.J. A gay, married man.
“I don’t think government should tell us what to do in our own homes,” he says, bending down on one knee to be heard above music coming from a nearby stage.
He has positioned himself as a moderate competing for a seat vacated in spectacular fashion by the state’s longtime Democratic senator, Robert Menendez, who was convicted of peddling his political influence in exchange for cash, gold and a Mercedes-Benz. Mr. Bashaw, 64, beat a candidate endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump to win the Republican nomination, and his showing in November will be a measure of his party’s appeal to centrist voters at a time of heightened polarization.
New Jersey has teetered between political parties when selecting governors. But it has been 52 years since voters elected a Republican senator, and both Mr. Bashaw and his closest supporters acknowledge that his road to victory is narrow.
“I don’t mind being stealth,” he says.
With the race for president at a fever pitch, turnout is expected to be robust, a factor that in New Jersey benefits Democrats, whose voters outnumber Republicans by 930,000. Mr. Bashaw has chipped in $1.8 million to his campaign, yet as of July 1 had $3 million less to spend than his Democratic opponent, Representative Andy Kim, who unveiled his first television ad last week and said he planned to be on the air through Election Day.
