Sen. Menendez wins re-election amid corruption allegations

New Jersey voters held their noses Tuesday and re-elected corruption-plagued Democratic US Sen. Bob Menendez.

In one of the most brutal and closely watched races of the season, Menendez beat out retired millionaire pharma exec and former Trump delegate Bob Hugin, who had faced an uphill battle for the seat despite his foe’s ethically challenged past.

The state has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.

Among the revelers at Menendez’s election-night headquarters at the W Hoboken hotel in Hoboken, NJ, was Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby — a juror at his federal corruption trial last year.

Arroyo-Maultsby was dismissed from the case so she could leave for vacation and later said she was prepared to vote to acquit the senator on all charges.

“I came out here to night because I know Bob Menendez is a good person,” the former juror told northjersey.com Tuesday night. “Bob Menendez is a very good man. … He did nothing wrong. He’s a great man.

“I voted for him,” Arroyo-Maultsby added, grinning as she showed she was wearing a Menendez campaign t-shirt.

Many Dems said the race came down to the lesser of two evils.

Menendez, 64, was put on trial in 2017 over his cozy relationship with an eye doctor and party donor, who he was accused of accepting bribes from in exchange for his political influence.

There were wild tales of hookers, private jets and lavish overseas vacations — all of which Hugin, 64, tried to capitalize on, even though Menendez was never convicted thanks to a hung jury.

Still, the Senate Ethics Committee formally admonished Menendez over his relationship with the doctor, saying the politician “knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value’’ and “failed to publicly disclose certain gifts as required by senate rule and federal law.’’

Democratic NJ Gov. Phil Murphy didn’t even want to campaign for Menendez, political insiders told The Post last month.

But while a majority of state voters polled a few days before the election admitted they didn’t like Menendez, they said they felt they didn’t have a choice but to pull the lever for him.

This year’s midterm elections were in reality a referendum on President Trump, according to a CNN exit poll of voters Tuesday, with the majority opposing his administration.

And Hugin couldn’t seem to shake his ties to the commander in chief.

While Hugin insisted that he was “no Trump Republican,’’ he had been a GOP delegate at the 2016 party convention and contributed to the president’s campaign, prompting Menendez to hammer him as a would-be lackey for the White House.

Menendez also painted Hugin as a callous drug executive who jacked up the price of cancer drugs while head of Celgene Corp.

Hugin dumped more than $37 million into the race, which Menendez matched with a fraction of the funds.

In the end, Hugin’s hoards of money didn’t matter.

Myrna Alexander, 70, Medford, NJ, said she drove people to the polls so they could vote for Menendez. Menendez “may have done unethical things, but whatever. … He isn’t the other guy,” she said.

Madsen Roy, a 67-year-old bus driver and Democrat from Bloomfield, NJ, said he supported Menendez even considering the onetime corruption case against him.

“If [jurors] were OK with it, then so am I,” Roy said of Menendez’s behavior.

Roy added that while he hasn’t voted in every mid-term election, this year was especially important to cast a ballot because “to me, the government has taken a bad turn.

“I’m here to make a correction, to correct the mistake,” he said.

But Bloomfield resident Richard Conta, 72, a Republican pension actuary who voted for Hugin, called Menendez “horrendous.”

As for Trump, he said, “He’s doing a fantastic job. If he keeps this up, he’ll be as good as Reagan.’’