Gottheimer doesn’t deny that his congressional campaign is funding gubernatorial super PAC

Ever since a new super PAC called Affordable New Jersey started spending millions of dollars on ads supporting Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly)’s gubernatorial campaign, speculation has abounded that the PAC’s money is coming from Gottheimer’s own enormous congressional campaign account, which can’t spend directly on a state campaign. Gottheimer isn’t denying it.

The New Jersey Globe attempted to ask Gottheimer multiple times – both in person at the Capitol and via his campaign – whether his congressional campaign, which has amassed $20.7 million as of its most recent filing, was sending money to Affordable New Jersey. The congressman steadfastly declined to comment.

Theoretically, if Gottheimer’s congressional campaign wasn’t funding Affordable New Jersey, there would be little reason for the congressman not to come out and say so; he, after all, has final say over where his campaign’s money goes, so he’d know if millions were suddenly being transferred to a super PAC. The fact that he’s not doing so could be a sign that his congressional campaign is supporting the PAC – though whether that hypothesis is correct may remain unknown for another month and a half.

Gottheimer’s congressional campaign will have to file 1st quarter congressional campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by April 15, reports which will make it clear whether the campaign is indeed behind Affordable New Jersey. The PAC itself, meanwhile, won’t have to file any reports until late May under state campaign finance law.

The lone piece of paperwork Affordable New Jersey has filed thus far lists its intended purpose as “support[ing] and oppos[ing] candidates for elected office across the state,” and says that it expects to spend $2.5 million this cycle, though that number is not binding and could easily be surpassed. Two calls to the phone number associated with the PAC were not answered.

Because of the state’s campaign contribution limits for candidates accepting public financing, Gottheimer – or any member of Congress running for governor – would not have been able to directly send money from his congressional campaign into his gubernatorial account. A 2023 advisory opinion from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) strengthened that requirement further, advising candidates that coordinated expenditures from a federal campaign would still apply to state-level spending caps.

But the (hypothetical) strategy of sending money from a congressional campaign into a super PAC, which faces no regulations on how much money it’s able to raise from a single source, does not appear to run afoul of any state campaign finance law. As long as Gottheimer’s gubernatorial campaign doesn’t directly coordinate with the PAC – which there’s no evidence it’s doing – then he’s probably in the clear with ELEC.

It’s a bit murkier, though, whether the FEC would take any issue with the strategy of funding an independent expenditure group with money from a congressional account.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), Gottheimer’s House colleague and another candidate for governor, submitted a request for an advisory opinion from the FEC last month asking whether she would be allowed to send unlimited contributions to an independent expenditure group. (Sherrill could have in theory been asking for her own campaign, but since she ended 2024 with just $184,000 in her congressional account, it’s far more likely the request was designed to apply to Gottheimer.)

“Federal law limits the amount that federal officeholders may contribute to these types of organizations,” Sherrill’s request asserts. “In 2006, the Commission advised a federal officeholder that a contribution comprising 25 percent of the recipient organization’s receipts would result in the organization being impermissibly ‘financed’ by the officeholder, in the context of the facts described in the request.”

The FEC has not yet issued an opinion in response to Sherrill’s request.

Gottheimer is, to be sure, far from the only gubernatorial candidate with a super PAC spending on their behalf. All five of his Democratic opponents have outside groups affiliated with their campaigns, some of which have raised heaps of money; Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s Coalition for Progress, which has been around since 2015, had $9.6 million banked at the end of 2024.

And nothing, not even Gottheimer’s own congressional account, can match the expenditures planned by Working New Jersey, a super PAC supporting New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) President Sean Spiller – and funded by the teachers union Spiller still leads. Working New Jersey has already blanketed the state in mailers and ads, and estimates that it intends to spend $35 million, most or all of which appears to be coming from the NJEA and its affiliates.

It remains to be seen whether Affordable New Jersey will spend anywhere near that much, but it’s already spent millions on ads promoting Gottheimer – ads that, thanks to stock footage Gottheimer left lying around on YouTube, look strikingly similar to the ads Gottheimer’s own gubernatorial campaign is airing.

Who, exactly, is funding the PAC’s ads? That will likely remain a mystery until at least April 15.