There is no doubt Senator Menendez's legal woes are making his race the one to watch this year.

The field of candidates running against him is getting deeper and more competitive, especially after Patricia Campos medina tossed her hat in the ring.

A veteran labor leader, activist and a strong voice in the Latino community, one of Menendez's voting strongholds.

This as all of New Jersey's congressional delegation is back on the ballot in 2024.

So what can we expect?

Our senior writer and projects editor, Colleen O'Dea, joins me to break it all down.

All right.

Headed into the new year.

So much to watch in the 2024 political season.

What can we expect?

You know, so we're going to have some interesting primaries this year, which is not something that we may have.

So that's something really that we're going to be looking out for in the beginning of the year.

You know, probably the biggest that I think everybody or we think everybody knows about by now is the U.S. Senate seat.

So, you know, Senator Bob Menendez in a lot of trouble.

We had a new superseding indictment come down again last night.

So there are new charges of, you know, federal corruption charges right now.

He has not yet decided or he's not announced whether he's running again.

But we've got four candidates, Tammy Murphy, of course, everyone's talking about she's gotten the the party line in a lot of counties.

Right.

The first candidate to jump in is Congressman Andy Kim from South Jersey.

And, you know, he's not he's saying don't do you know, don't think you're going to take this from me.

So he's very confident.

You've got Lawrence Hamm up here from Newark.

He's a, you know, really an organizer.

And then just this morning, Patricia Campos medina.

That's right.

Jumped in to the race, a very well-known Latina.

She's a labor organizer.

So it's quite a it's quite a field.

And you know what?

I don't think anyone saw that coming.

I don't know if anyone saw that coming.

And I really am interested to know what you think, how she's going to change the race.

So, you know, Senator Menendez has talked a lot about his support among Hispanics.

And so she is obviously a Latina and she's very well known in the community.

She's also well known among women's groups.

So she has the potential to pull away, perhaps convince Menendez not to jump in if he if he is still considering it and perhaps to pull some support from Tammy Murphy.

One of the arguments that that has been made is that, you know, we've never had a woman senator in New Jersey.

And so, you know, now's the time.

Well, now you've got another option in in Patricia campus Medina.

All right.

Calling with all the congressional races back on the ballot for 2024, what are the races closely watched?

So we have a couple of primaries in the congressional races as well.

Down in South Jersey for Indi Kim seat, you've got two assembly members opposing one another.

They both represent the seventh district in the state legislative district.

So that should be interesting.

It's Herb Conaway and Carol Murphy.

And then up in the eighth District in Hudson County, where Rob Menendez, the son of the state senator, is facing a challenge from the Hoboken mayor, Ravi Bhalla, that has another potential to be a close race, perhaps.

I mean, Rob Menendez has support from the Hudson County political establishment, but.

It is change.

A lot can change.

Right.

And is it possible that his father's name is going to take some support from him?

Right.

We don't know.

The big race.

Once we get to the general election, it's going to be in the seventh District.

And that's where Tom Kean is, the freshman Republican.

He defeated the Democrat, Tom Malinowski, in 2022.

And while that district is tends to lead Republican.

Ever since we read through.

Our district to say redistricting played a huge part in a lot of that.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So that's why Kane is in.

But if you look at the numbers from 2020, Joe Biden won would have won that district had it been constituted as it is today.

So the question is, with Biden at the top of the ticket, will that help a Democrat unseat Kane?

Colleen O'Dea, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks very much Raven.