Kate Gibbs picked for N.J. GOP post

Kate Gibbs, a former Burlington County Commissioner and a top official of the Operating Engineers Local 825 union, has been named executive director of the Republican State Committee, taking the top state party staff post in a hotly contested gubernatorial election year.

The new state chairman, Glenn Paulsen, announced her appointment tonight.  She succeeds Kennith Gonzalez, who had been named to the post by Bob Hugin, now the former Republican state chairman.

Gibbs had previously served on the board of Kitchen Table Conservatives, now known as Change NJ, a super PAC that played an instrumental role in helping Ciattarelli win the GOP primary by a wide margin.

She was 28 when Republicans selected Gibbs and Navy SEAL Ryan Peters to challenge two incumbents, Aimee Belgard and Joanne Schwartz, for two Burlington freeholder seats in 2016.  Gibbs ran 1,671 votes ahead of Belgard and 2,283 votes in front of Schwartz.

Seeking a second term in 2018, a Democratic wave election nationally, Gibbs lost her freeholder seat by 9,550 votes in 2018 to Democrat George Youngkin, who had dropped out of the race in September after a Burlington County Times story revealed that he had been arrested for attempting to choke his ex-wife and for stalking another woman.  Her loss came despite her shepherding the county to two consecutive tax cuts.

In 2020, Gibbs sought to challenge freshman Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown); under the old map, New Jersey’s 3rd district was hugely competitive, and Donald Trump had carried it in 2016 and 2020.  She was considered the front-runner until a self-funder, David Richter, switched districts and narrowly won the Ocean GOP convention – and the line – by just eight votes.