It Looks Like Bob Menendez's Wife Has Left the Dems

Matt Vespa | November 04, 2025 6:00 AM

She has until July 2026 to vote in our elections, and it looks like she might be taking advantage of that timeframe. Nadine Menendez, the wife of disgraced former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, who is currently serving an 11-year jail sentence for bribery and other crimes, is reportedly now a Republican. Even Gold Bar Bob received a mail-in ballot despite being held in federal lockup. It’s an amusing development. Both Bob and Nadine Menendez were charged and convicted of an elaborate bribery and corruption scheme, where their house was littered with nearly $500,000 in cash and gold bars (via NJ Globe):

Disgraced former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was mailed a ballot to vote in tomorrow’s election despite being incarcerated in a federal prison for taking bribes since June 17, but he has not returned it.
The Bergen County Clerk’s office mailed a vote-by-mail ballot to the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman on September 16.
He is serving an 11-year prison sentence for taking gold bars, a luxury Mercedes, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for acting as a foreign agent of the government of Egypt while serving in the Senate.
[…]
The ex-senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was sentenced to 54 months in prison on September 11; she is due to report to prison in July. She is permitted to vote until she enters prison. Bob and Nadine Menendez voted by mail in the June Democratic primary.
Nadine Menendez has filed a party declaration card and is now a registered Republican.

Menendez maintains his innocence, though he was left alone in the wilderness once the contents of the search by federal agents were made public. It seems the gold bars were the smoking gun and the final straw for his Democratic colleagues, most of whom treated him rightly as persona non grata after this mess. He tried to run for re-election as an independent, though one that would caucus with the Democrats if successful. That Hail Mary attempt ended with his conviction and resignation from the Senate in July 2024.