Can a Democrat beat Jeff Van Drew? Four want to try.

It’s been a while since South Jersey Democrats have allowed themselves to dream of flipping the 2nd congressional district, which Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) – a former Democrat himself – has held since 2019. The district is simply too conservative to elect a Democrat; Van Drew is simply too popular; Democrats simply do not have the resources or energy to compete.

But this year, as President Donald Trump’s approval ratings sag and New Jersey Democrats grow increasingly bullish on their chances, a glimmer of Democratic optimism has started to emerge for the first time since Amy Kennedy’s 2020 campaign. No one thinks the district will be an easy win, but if there’s a huge blue wave this November, it might at least enter the conversation.

First, though, Democrats need to decide who they’ll be putting forward for the seat, which includes cities like Atlantic City and Vineland, the outer reaches of the Philadelphia suburbs, and vast swaths of rural territory.

The nominee will likely be one of three candidates: Tim Alexander, a civil rights attorney who has run for the seat twice before; Bayly Winder, a former USAID official; and Zack Mullock, the mayor of the city of Cape May. A fourth candidate, Terri Reese, is also running, but she is viewed as the underdog compared to her better-known and better-funded foes.

With 12 days to go until the primary, the race has not drawn a huge amount of attention or money, setting it apart from some of the more dramatic congressional primaries New Jersey has witnessed this year. “It’s like they’re running a council race rather than some high-stakes congressional race,” one South Jersey Democratic operative said.

But from the national party’s perspective, the stakes are high. Another Democratic strategist told the New Jersey Globe that national Democrats view Mullock as the strongest candidate in the field, and would consider materially supporting his general election campaign should he become the nominee.

Alexander, on the other hand, is viewed as the weakest choice given his struggles with fundraising and his past performances in the seat. If Alexander wins the primary, the chances of serious outside investment would likely drop precipitously.

That’s nothing new for Alexander, who has been doggedly running for the 2nd district for essentially five years straight with little investment from the state or national party. He won the Democratic primary in 2022, but was defeated by Van Drew by 19 percentage points in a mediocre year for Democrats; two years later, he was narrowly beaten in the primary by a self-funding foe, Joe Salerno, who went on to lose to Van Drew by 17 points.

Now on his third campaign, Alexander said that South Jersey voters have come to know him and trust him from his work across the district: as a congressional candidate, as an attorney, and as a former detective. Compared with other candidates who are newer to the political scene, he said, he’d be “ready to rock and roll on Day 1.”

“People want proximity to their candidates, and they want to know that their candidates have proximity to the community,” he said. “For me, this is a no-brainer, but I have to convince other people of the same.”

Alexander has indeed cultivated some loyal allies among South Jersey Democrats, winning four of the district’s six county party endorsements following several hotly contested conventions. He also undoubtedly began the race with the highest name recognition of anyone in the field, compared to two first-time candidates and one small-town mayor from a remote corner of the district.

What he doesn’t have – what he’s never had, in any of his campaigns – is money. Alexander has only reported raising around $66,000 for his campaign so far, less than one-twentieth of what Van Drew has raised this cycle; he insists, though, that money is overrated as a political necessity.

“Money will not win this district,” he said. “That old, played-out Democratic playbook must be tossed.”

The best fundraiser in the race, by contrast, has been Winder, who’s raised more than $600,000 since entering the race last summer. He’s also the only candidate to get outside help; an allied super PAC, South Jersey Leadership, has spent around $36,000 on pro-Winder mailers.

Winder – who worked for years at USAID and the State Department, where he specialized in Iran policy – has leaned into an anti-corruption and anti-machine message, which may earn him some fans in a part of the state long dominated by local Democratic bosses. He’s also campaigned heavily on the issue of data center development, which he blames for rising utility costs.

“I had a town hall recently in Bridgeton where people showed up at the town hall with their utility bill, holding it in their hands,” Winder said. “To me, that just shows you the level of outrage that we’re dealing with.”

But Winder’s approach has also rubbed some people the wrong way and created discord in an otherwise peaceful primary. Winder isn’t originally from South Jersey and only moved back to the state from D.C. at the beginning of last year, something his foes like to note; an unsuccessful attempt to remove Reese from the ballot over issues with her petitions also had ties to Winder’s campaign, though Winder denied any connection to the challenge.

Both Alexander and Reese said that if Winder were to be the nominee, they would refuse to support his general election campaign, an unusually strong pledge to make against a fellow Democrat.

“I feel that Zack, Tim, and I are all legitimate, grounded candidates that can defeat Van Drew with the help of our combined supporters and the community as a whole,” Reese said. “I have heard from people within the district that they would rather vote for Van Dew than Winder because the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

Winder said it’s “unfortunate” his opponents would feel that way: “I think that’s part of why we are where we are today, because of that kind of petty politics,” he said.

Mullock, for his part, has tried to rise above the fray of the primary, saying that he’s tried to gear his campaign more towards the general election. First elected as mayor of his 2,768-person town in 2020, Mullock has only ever run in nonpartisan elections before, and he said that shapes his campaigning and governing style.

“Obviously, I’m a strong Democrat and have very strong Democratic values, but being mayor in a nonpartisan town where you’re trying to work with everybody, I think my approach is a little more welcoming to everybody,” he said.

Mullock has made his record as mayor and his ability to beat Van Drew the center of his campaign pitch. Even though he only entered the race a few months ago and has had to play catch-up since, it’s been enough to catch the eye of some Democrats in Washington.

“I’ve been working with the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], they’ve been helpful,” he said. “But one thing I want to be clear about is that we have to have a South Jersey campaign. That is the only way we’re going to win this election.”

Finally, there’s Reese, who is running as the most explicitly progressive candidate in the race. Reese launched her campaign earlier than anyone else, and while that head start didn’t give her much of an edge in fundraising or establishment support, she argues that voters will see through the money and the posturing to support her.

“Voters are really looking forward to having a true progressive candidate to vote for to get into office,” Reese said. “They’re tired of the establishment candidates, they’re tired of people who are backed by the party machines, they’re tired of people who just keep reiterating the same talking points that everyone else reiterates and talks about.”

(A fifth Democratic candidate, math teacher Bill Finn, had planned to run for the seat as well, but he fell short of the signature requirements.)

How much do Democratic voters in the 2nd district know about any of these dynamics? That remains to be seen. Even the better-funded candidates in the race haven’t blanketed the district with ads, so there will likely be plenty of voters who go to the polls on June 2 having never been contacted by any campaign; the four candidates met at Stockton University for a debate last night, one that revealed few yawning ideological divides in the field.

The race’s low-profile nature could favor Alexander, who started out with a name ID advantage and has party endorsements to back him up. But Mullock and Winder have some local support too – Mullock has the endorsement of the Cape May Democrats, and Winder nearly won the convention in Atlantic County – and have spent much more money than Alexander reaching out to voters. 

Most Democrats outside the district have adopted a wait-and-see approach to the race. That includes the South Jersey Democratic machine, which hasn’t gotten seriously involved in the 2nd district since Van Drew’s first re-election campaign as a Republican in 2020; the Gloucester County Democratic organization, which is essentially an arm of Democratic boss George Norcross’s operation, pointedly declined to endorse anyone.

Part of that hesitancy to wade into the race comes from an enduring skepticism that the district is in fact winnable for Democrats. Not only did Van Drew, widely seen as a skilled politician and a formidable figure in the district, prevail by double digits his last two elections, Donald Trump carried the district 55% to 43% in 2024; even Gov. Mikie Sherrill lost the district to Jack Ciattarelli by seven points in last year’s governor’s race despite her statewide landslide.

The geography of the district is unavoidably tough: even if Democrats do well in areas like Atlantic and Cumberland Counties, the district has dozens of deep-red rural towns that drown them out. (One solution to that could be redrawing the state’s map, but even if Democrats decide to go down that road, it wouldn’t come in time for the 2026 elections.)

And yet, while those daunting numbers made Democrats scoff at the idea of even contesting the seat in 2022 and 2024, all four 2nd district Democrats said that there’s a newfound optimism in the district that wasn’t there before.

“As this campaign has gone on, it has shown Jeff Van Drew that there are qualified, knowledgeable, smart, eager people who live in his district that have had enough,” Reese said. “I firmly believe that he is worried.”

“Someone asked me the other day, what’s Jeff Van Drew’s message to voters? And I sort of laughed, because I don’t think there is one,” Winder said. “He’s trying to hide and take for granted the support he’s enjoyed in the past, but I don’t think that’s going to fly with people this year.”