Republicans see several New Jersey congressional districts, flipped in 2018 from Republican to Democratic, as key pickup opportunities in the 2020 elections.
House Republicans and supporters need to win about 19 seats to reclaim the majority they lost in 2020. President Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket will help, they say, though New Jersey has gone Democratic in every presidential race since 1992.
On ABC’s This Week Sunday, former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he felt confident Republicans could flip Democratic House seats in his state with the help of Trump at the top of the ticket.
“You know what’s happening in blue New Jersey, a very blue state. Jeff Van Drew switches from Democrat to Republican, from the majority party to the minority party in the middle of impeachment because of impeachment. Andy Kim, who won his seat two years ago, is now losing to Katie Gibbs, his Republican challenger. And Tom Malinowski is losing to Tom Kaine Jr., the son of the former governor,” Christie said.
Democratic New Jersey Rep. Andrew Kim, 37, was first elected to office after winning the state’s 3rd Congressional District in 2018. He defeated Republican incumbent Tom MacArthur by 1.2% or 3,973 votes. The third-party candidate who ran on the Constitutionalist Party line scooped up 3,902 votes.
The district, which the Cook Political Report rates as a toss-up, however, remains a tough reelection battle for Kim. In 2016, the district backed Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 6.2%.
One such challenger is former Burlington County Freeholder Kate Gibbs, who announced her bid for the 3rd congressional district late last month. Gibbs lost her seat after one term in last year’s blue wave, but following the formation of an exploratory committee decided to run for Congress this election cycle.
Gibbs also called the impeachment of the president, which Kim voted for, “political theater” and “costing us time and money. We need people to fix problems rather than have this circus.”
Kim, though, appears to have no plans to talk about his voting for the articles of impeachment on the campaign trail, opting instead to campaign on prescription drug costs.
“I have done 15 town halls in my district this year and the top issue I have talked about is lowering prescription drug costs,” he said recently. “The cost side of things is something people see on a daily basis. It’s something tangible that they understand is a problem.”
However, Republicans believe they can make a better argument on healthcare in the 2020 election this cycle, while Democrats in the presidential primary are still hashing out which plan to back.
“Republicans are on much better ground this cycle,” Bob Salera, deputy communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, argued. “Voters want bipartisan action to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs, not socialized medicine.”
Another New Jersey seat in Republican crosshairs is the 7th Congressional District, currently occupied by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski. State Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., son of former Republican New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, launched his campaign in April.
Malinowski, who worked in the Obama State Department, defeated Republican incumbent Lance Leonard by over 16,000 votes in 2018 and became the first Democrat to win the seat since 1956.
The New Jersey Democrat, boosted by 2018 PACs, was able to raise almost $6.3 million, twice that of Leonard. According to the New Jersey Globe, currently, Kean, the Republican primary front-runner, has raised around $1 million, and Malinowski has raised nearly $1.78 million.
The swing district is rated by the Cook Political Report as “Lean Democratic.”
