New Jerseyans Begin To Wonder If Even Jeff Van Drew Could Be Vulnerable In Midterms

New Jersey and national Democrats had almost grudgingly accepted that Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the states’ most prominent Trump loyalist, was untouchable.

But with President Donald Trump’s popularity plummeting, sharp swings toward Democrats in special elections around the country and Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s landslide 2025 election — along with an unpopular new artificial intelligence data center in the heart of Van Drew’s district — that may be starting to change.

At least one veteran Republican operative thinks so.

“Even Van Drew’s race is going to be competitive,” said Chris Venis, a New Jersey Republican who just launched a super PAC, the National Policy Action Committee, that he says may work to boost Van Drew’s reelection. “This year even R-leaning districts must be prepared.”

Van Drew was a longtime Democratic state lawmaker who won the U.S. House seat in 2018 following Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo's retirement with the help of the vaunted South Jersey Democratic machine. As a Democrat representing a conservative state legislative district, Van Drew sometimes broke with his party, typically with the blessing of leadership who understood his political position. But as a Republican, he's been fiercely loyal to Trump and a reliable vote for the president's agenda.

The vast majority of both parties’ midterm resources in New Jersey have been focused on Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.'s wealthy, suburban-dominated 7th District in Central Jersey, which voted for Trump in 2024 by just one point. Van Drew’s 2nd District in South Jersey, far more blue collar and rural, is deeper MAGA territory. It voted for Trump in 2024 by almost 13 points. Van Drew carried it by 17.

Flipping a district a Republican so easily carried would take a cataclysmic year for the GOP. But there are signs that 2026 might be just that.

Special elections in other parts of the country show swings roughly equal to Van Drew’s 2024 margin of victory — a year Trump performed exceptionally well in blue New Jersey, losing its 14 electoral votes to Kamala Harris by just 6 points. In Georgia’s special election Tuesday to replace former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in a deep-red district, Republican Clay Fuller beat Democrat Shawn Harris by just 12 points — a 17-point swing toward Democrats from Greene’s 2024 reelection.

Despite Trump's stronger-than-expected performance in 2024, New Jersey voters’ dissatisfaction with him is considered one of the main factors for Sherrill’s 14-point win over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who during the campaign unabashedly embraced the president. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Thursday showed just 26 percent of New Jersey residents had a favorable opinion of Trump.

Van Drew is closer to Trump than Ciattarelli. In 2019, when he switched parties from Democrat to Republican over his refusal to vote to impeach Trump, Van Drew pledged his “undying loyalty” to the president and went on to vote against certifying the 2020 election results.

Since then, Van Drew has been a reliable vote for Trump’s policies and expressed full-throated support for his attacks on Iran.

And there’s no shortage of Democrats seeking to take him on. Four Democratic candidates — Tim Alexander, Zack Mullock, Terri Reese and Bayly Winder — are competing in the district’s June primary.

Alexander, who lost to Van Drew by 19 points in 2022, said this year little resembles that one.

“The situation we’re in as a nation is significantly different in the concerns that people have with the management of our country and those who support the president like Van Drew,” he said.

Dan Cassino, who runs Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll, doesn’t think Van Drew is truly vulnerable. “I don’t think any of those Democrats will get the sort of money or attention they’ll need in a wave election,” he said.

Van Drew, Cassino said, is “well-liked in the district” — pointing to Van Drew taking credit for securing $99 million in federal funds for beach replenishment, even though the money had been jeopardized by the Trump administration.

“He’s doing what he needs to do to get reelected. I’m not sure the same is true for Tom Kean Jr. Jeff Van Drew, unlike Tom Kean, is accessible to his voters,” Cassino said.

And Van Drew’s campaign is not sweating it. His campaign manager Ron Filan noted that the district isn’t much more heavily Republican than Kean’s in party registration, despite Van Drew’s huge margins there in the last two elections. And he pointed out that Van Drew’s 2024 opponent, Joe Salerno, spent $1.7 million against him.

“The rhetoric that the Democrats want to come after Jeff and target him and do it is something they say year in and year out, and every year we’ve proven them wrong on that,” Filan said.

As for Venis, Filan said, “I have no idea who this guy is. I have no idea what that PAC is.” (Venis is somewhat familiar in the 2nd District. His sister-in-law, Democrat Yolanda Garcia Balacki, last year flipped a commissioner seat in Cumberland County, which is fully in the district and narrowly voted for Trump in 2024.)

But Van Drew isn’t just facing national headwinds. One of the Democrats seeking to run against Van Drew, Winder, has seized on the development of an AI data center in Vineland that has energized residents, who have shown up to council meetings to protest it. The center’s developer cited Van Drew’s support as being “critical.” Filan pushed back, writing in an op-ed that the representative did not have “any role whatsoever in approving or advocating” the project.

South Jersey Democrats, who nurtured Van Drew’s political career in the state Legislature and worked to get him elected in 2018, have long felt betrayed by his party switch. But they also haven’t recently been bullish on defeating him.

Michael Suleiman, the Democratic chair of Atlantic County, said it’s “concerning” that Ciattarelli still carried the district by 7 points in last year's governor election.

Nevertheless, Suleiman sees a glimmer of hope for Democrats this year.

“There’s a lot of good issues to hit Jeff on,” he said. “I think this is the year to do it.”