The Republican who wants to be NJ’s next senator has a familiar problem: Donald Trump

When New Jersey hotelier Curtis Bashaw decided in January to run for the Senate, he had never donated to Donald Trump and instead helped fund Christie Christie’s anti-Trump presidential run.

But within three months of declaring, he endorsed Trump and was shaking hands in the stands at the former president's rally in South Jersey. He did so even as Trump endorsed Bashaw’s Republican primary rival, a MAGA loyalist, at the same event.

Now Bashaw is once again attempting to put distance between himself and Trump as he tries to become the first New Jersey Republican in half a century to win a Senate seat.

Bashaw’s see-sawing support illustrates the challenge for blue state Republicans trying to simultaneously win over the MAGA base and moderate voters. It’s a struggle that’s become familiar in the GOP since Trump’s ascendance a decade ago and can now be seen in competitive congressional races from New York to California : Candidates need Trump to win the general election, but won’t go so far as to embrace him.

“Each one of us as citizens has a binary choice in our elections and our vote. I think people struggle with their choices at the top of the ticket each year,” Bashaw said in a phone interview. “I don’t think we can have four more years of the same. That’s why I’m doing that.”

On paper, Bashaw looks like the kind of candidate Republicans need to have any hope of winning a Senate race in New Jersey for the first time since 1972. He’s a wealthy, openly gay married man whose businesses employ over 1,000 people. He has bipartisan credentials, having donated to candidates from both parties over the years. And he was among the close circle of people around Democratic former Gov. Jim McGreevey — who had named him executive director of the state’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority — as McGreevey prepared to announce he was gay and resign from office.

But Trump has proven politically toxic in New Jersey, where backlash to his rhetoric and policies has turned many reliably red New Jersey suburbs into blue bastions. And now Bashaw is caught between alienating the Republican base by distancing himself from the former president and alienating the larger New Jersey base of voters by supporting him against Kamala Harris.

“Bashaw’s only play here is to try to win over independents and moderate Democrats, and you can’t do that if you’re seen to be in bed with Donald Trump,” said Dan Cassino, director of Fairleigh Dickinson University poll.

Bashaw faces steep odds against Democratic Rep. Andy Kim to fill the seat opened by the conviction this summer of Bob Menendez. Bashaw is down in limited public polling, lags in fundraising despite putting $2 million of his own into the race and is trying to win a seat that hasn’t been won by a Republican since the Nixon administration.

Bashaw’s Republican primary opponent, Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner —whose husband, Michael Glassner, was COO of Trump’s 2020 campaign — has not endorsed her former adversary and has privately criticized him. She declined to comment to POLITICO. And despite an early independent poll showing Kim leading a head-to-head matchup with Bashaw by a somewhat closer-than-expected 9 points, there’s little indication of any help on the way from national Republicans save for a $35,000 donation from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Republican hopes were further deflated Menendez, convicted of corruption and facing years in prison, dropped his plans to run for reelection as an independent, which would have threatened to draw some Democrats from his base in Hudson County.

Kim, the clear frontrunner in the race, hasn’t publicly engaged Bashaw much. But at the debate, he sought to knock off his rival’s moderate credentials by contrasting them with his support for Trump.

“We’ve seen three justices put on the Supreme Court from Donald Trump. We’ve seen the Supreme Court take the most extremist turns, certainly in my lifetime, and something that is going against so many of the fundamental beliefs that people in New Jersey hold,” Kim said. “So I am worried about Mr. Bashaw’s ability to make decisions about Supreme Court justices, as we’ve seen him make a decision about who should be the next president.”

Bashaw calls himself “pro-choice” but also agrees with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade , which allowed many states to enact broad bans on abortion. He told POLITICO that he would work on a bipartisan federal bill to “protect a woman’s right to choose in all 50 states.”

Kim in a phone interview said Bashaw is “being an opportunist” on abortion rights. “During the Republican primary, he’s highlighting in particular how he supports the Dobbs decision , supports going back to the states to decide,” Kim said. “And as soon as the primary’s over, he pivots and says now ‘I support federal legislation.’”

Despite putting distance between himself and Trump, Bashaw’s top campaign issue mirrors the Trump campaign’s: Undocumented immigration. “I think New Jerseyans are really, truly freaked out about the open border. When I realized it’s 894,000 illegals living in our state centered in five counties,” Bashaw said. (Most sources, with the exception of the Federation for American Immigration, which pushes to reduce all immigration, put the number at about half of that).

“Why wouldn’t you lock your back door at night?” Bashaw said.

Bashaw also said he wants to be “a common sense voice in D.C. that’s as a political outsider and a business perspective” and repeal the cap on the State and Local Tax Deduction — which Trump instituted. And he criticized Kim for calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, for joining the Congressional Progressive Caucus and for acting as a “rubber stamp” for Democrats.

Bashaw also pushed back against the idea that he criticized Trump by posting on Twitter a letter published in Harpers that called the former president a “threat to democracy." Instead, he said, he was more concerned about the “erosion of liberal values” in academia.

Bashaw said his is a “sleeper race” and that he expects national Republican help will come “as things shake out in the marquee races.”

But Kim said it’s disingenuous for Bashaw to say he’ll govern as a moderate while also backing Trump.

“We’ve seen other Republicans say they’re not willing to vote for Donald Trump, including some Senate candidates,” said Kim, pointing to Larry Hogan’s campaign in Maryland.

“Sure, he might have some more moderate viewpoints than some of his Republican colleagues, but he’s going to support a Republican majority leader,” Kim added. “That’s going to prevent any type of federal legislation when it comes to codifying abortion rights. It’s going to push in extreme ways. It’s going to work with potential president Donald Trump to move things in that direction.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated Bashaw's activity at a South Jersey rally. He was shaking hands with Donald Trump supporters.