Durr endorses GOP candidate against Norcross

State Sen.-elect Edward Durr (R-Logan) said that former Collingswood school board member Claire Gustafson will seek a rematch against Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) in 2022.

“I will stand with her when she announces and be with her every step of the way,” Durr said.  “Let’s move forward together and slay another giant.  I promise, together we can do it.”

Durr said that Gustafson “supported me every step of the way” in his upset defeat of Senate President Steve Sweeny in last week’s general election.

Norcross defeated Gustafson by 96,104 votes in 2020, 62%-38%.

The last incumbent to lose South Jersey’s 1st district congressional seat was Rep. John Hunt (R-Pitman), a four-term incumbent who lost his seat in the 1974 Watergate Democratic wave election.

Jim Florio, a 35-year-old assemblyman from Camden County, flipped the seat on his second try.

Hunt defeated Florio in 1972 by 10,158 votes, 53%-47%, in a district that Richard Nixon won by 20 points.

Florio ousted Hunt, a conservative’s conservative who had served as Gloucester County Sherriff and as a state senator, by 26,699 votes, 58%-39%.

This will be Gustafson’s third House bid.

She lost the GOP primary to Gary Cobb in 2014 when Norcross, then a state senator, sought the seat left vacant when Rep. Rob Andrews (D-Haddon Heights) resigned.

Norcross defeated Cobb by 29,242 votes, 57%-39%, in 2014.  He was re-elected in 2018 with 64% of the vote against Republican Paul Dilks, winning by 82,011 votes.