2018 General Election Elected 55 – 44
This political note is one of a series about the ten closest Democratic Congress19 winners in 2016. Even if there is a Democratic wave in 2018, these Members of Congress have to be thought of as vulnerable. None of them won by much and each of them could easily lose the next time around.
Josh Gottheimer http://josh4congress.com/ has been in the page to intern to Congressman pipeline. When he was 16, he was a page for Senator Lautenberg of NJ. While at West Essex High School and the University of Pennsyivania, and Harvard Law School, he was able to get internships with C-Span, with the Secretary of the US Senate, and with Tom Foley when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives.
That’s not all. Josh Gottheimer was on Bill Clinton’s Rapid Response Team for the 1996 reelection campaign and then joined the administration as a speechwriter. In 2004, he worked, first for the Wesley Clark presidential campaign, then for the John Kerry Campaign. In 2008, he worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign. He also married that year and now has two children.
After the failed presidential campaigns, Josh Gottheimer went to work in the private sector — first for Ford Motor Company, then for an international public relations firm. After a stint at the FCC, he worked for Microsoft.
Josh Gottheimer was not going to stay in the private sector. In 2016, he targeted NJ 05, a district that was less than a half-hour drive away from where Gottheimer grew up. The Republican incumbent was virulently anti-gay and had advocated that the Republican National Committee not support gay candidates.
Relying on fellow alumni of the Clinton campaigns and his other campaigns made him into a very successful fund raiser. In the ninth closest Democratic Congressional victory, he won by 14,987 votes out of a total of almost 340,000 votes, with a margin that was just about twice the vote of a third party candidate.
Josh Gottheimer is a fit for this rural/suburban Congressional District with a Republican history. Until Josh Gottheimer’s election in 2016, NJ 05 had only two years of Democratic Congressional representation since 1911.
Josh Gottheimer is liberal on social issues but conservative on some business issues. For instance, he had campaigned on reducing government regulations and was one of the few Democrats to have voted to overturn Obama era health and safety regulations. He is certainly not an automatic for business interests. For instance, he is an advocate for net neutrality.
Josh Gottheimer is passionate about findings ways to reduce the extreme partisanship in Congress. Toward that end, he is a member of the Problem Solvers’ Caucus — intended to be twenty Democrats and twenty Republicans all working toward that end.
Josh Gottheimer’ssuccess is, in part, a product of his being an extraordinarily hard worker. Alone among the candidates for office that I’ve reviewed so far, his capacity to work hard and work long hours has been noticed by commentators.
If Democrats are going to gain a majority in the House of Representatives, Congressmen like Josh Gottheimer http://josh4congress.com are going to have to be part of the mix. Take a look and see if you can support him. Remember, looking as far away as November, 2018, regular monthly donations, even if they are small, are particularly valuable.
Also — if Democrats are going to retake the majority in Congress, they will need to win elections in districts that have been voting Republican.
1. Kansas 04: Jim Thompson got 46% of the vote in a Special Election last week in a district the Republican carried in 2016 61-30.
2. Georgia 06 JonOssoff got 48% (unofficial result) in a Special Election yesterday in a district the Republican carried in 2016 62-38. The runoff election will be on June 20 against Karen Handel, the former official of the Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity official who destroyed the Race for the Cure with her anti-Planned Parenthood obsession. His website is https://electjon.com/. He raised a lot of money to get this far. He will need more.
3. Montana AL Rob Quist, folksinger and Bernie supporter is the Democratic candidate in a special election on May 25. Help him get more than 50% of the vote against a transplanted NJ billionaire in a state-wide district the Republican carried in 2016 56-41. HIs website is http://robquist.org/. This is the next Congressional election coming up.
4. South Carolina 05 Archie Parnell, tax specialist and former Goldman-Sachs official is the probable Democratic candidate in a Special election on June 20 (though there is a primary on May 2). Wait until after the primary if you want. Take a look at his positions on his website https://archieparnell.com/. Help him win the June 20 election in a district the Republican carried in 2016 59-39.
If you can support all of these people — Great. If you can support only one or two, that’s also great. This country needs whatever you can do.
