"There were those same voices asking, 'Can a Hispanic win statewide?' " he told a reporter in an interview three years ago. In the end, he decided not to enter the race.

Next month, Menendez will become New Jersey's junior senator when he's sworn in to take the place of Jon Corzine, who is leaving the Senate to become governor. This time, Democratic Party leaders were pushing the state's first Hispanic congressman for the promotion. The reason: They think he's the candidate most likely to help them keep the seat in Democratic hands when New Jersey voters select a senator for a full, six-year term in November.

"He is eminently electable," Corzine said as he announced his intention to appoint Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, as his successor. Menendez, 51, will take the seat in mid-January, when the Senate returns from a holiday recess.

His odyssey from frustrated wannabe to sought-after rising star reflects a striking political trend: After years of being nearly frozen out of top statewide races by party bosses who feared alienating voters, black and Hispanic politicians are now getting red-carpet treatment from political leaders who hope they will be able to mobilize key constituencies in close races.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a black Republican, said he was "very heavily recruited" by party leaders to enter next year's Senate race. "They saw a candidate who was very competitive in a very difficult state," said Steele, the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination. Another sign of the competition for the minority vote in Maryland, where 29% of the total population is black: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin O'Malley recently picked a black running mate, state legislator Anthony Brown, a Harvard Law School graduate and Iraq war veteran.

There's no clearer barometer of the sea change taking place for minorities in politics than in the Senate, which until last year had had only three Hispanic members in its entire history. When Menendez is sworn in, there will be three Hispanics serving at the same time.

In last year's elections, the only two Democrats to win Senate seats for the first time were Barack Obama, an African-American from Illinois, and Ken Salazar, a Hispanic from Colorado.

Obama is the only African-American now in the Senate and just the third to be elected to the chamber since Reconstruction.

Menendez said the 2004 elections may make it easier to persuade party leaders to support minority candidates for top statewide offices. "Once they see you can have success, as Ken Salazar did in Colorado and as Barack Obama did in Illinois, then every time becomes easier," he said.

The number of major-party minority candidates is striking because, until now, so few have been elected to top statewide office. Of the nearly 2,000 people who have served in the U.S. Senate since 1789, only 18 have been black, Hispanic, Native American or Asian-American. Only 10 governors have been non-white or Hispanic.

Minorities have had more success in the House. Of the 435 current House members and five non-voting elected delegates, 71 are members of minority groups.

According to Larry Gonzalez, director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials' Washington office, there are only nine Hispanics holding statewide office in the nation. Four are in New Mexico, a state that's 42% Hispanic. "It is an issue, and I think both parties have to answer for it," Gonzalez said.

So far, minority candidates with the strongest major-party support for top statewide office next year are all blacks and Hispanics. Among them:

Hispanic candidates: In addition to Menendez, New Mexico's Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, is seeking a second, four-year term. Richardson is often mentioned in the media as a possible 2008 presidential contender.

As both parties look for an edge in a nation where the vote has been almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats in recent elections, the effort to mobilize key voting blocs appears to be making minority candidates more attractive to political leaders. "Demographics certainly plays a part," Menendez says.

Another factor: the increasing experience and political savvy of minority candidates. Until recently, minority politicians were "very much concentrated in local elective offices," says David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that tracks black political leaders and issues. "Now they're moving up to a whole new level. ... As time goes by, there will be more of them."