House Republicans’ narrow majority could hinder two N.J. gubernatorial hopefuls

This week, the final House race of the 2024 election cycle was called: Democrat Adam Gray defeated Republican Rep. John Duarte by 187 votes, flipping Duarte’s seat in California’s Central Valley to Democrats. With Gray’s victory, the House’s partisan balance come January 2025 will stand at 220-215 in favor of Republicans; in reality, it will be an even narrower 217-215 for several months thanks to the departure of some members to join the administration of Donald Trump.

That means that, in the early days of the 119th Congress, House Republicans theoretically cannot afford even a single defection from their ranks on controversial legislation, since a 216-216 tied vote would lead to the bill failing. But that assumes full attendance on the Democratic side, something that won’t always be the case – especially with two New Jersey House members, Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), both wrapped up in 2025 gubernatorial campaigns.

Until June of next year, Sherrill and Gottheimer will be competing against one another and four other declared candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination; if one of them wins, then they’ll have to devote five more months to the general election. That’s a lot of time that they’ll need to spend campaigning in New Jersey rather than attending committee meetings and votes in Washington.

Of the eight voting days that the House has held since November 18, the first day both Sherrill and Gottheimer were in the race, Gottheimer has missed seven and Sherrill has missed five. Sherrill has missed a total of 20 roll-call votes and Gottheimer has missed 19, though none of them were close enough that either of them would have been the deciding votes one way or the other.

Sherrill and Gottheimer each told the New Jersey Globe that they intend to be in touch with Democratic leaders to make sure they’re there for the most important votes and don’t leave the Democratic caucus short-handed.

“I’ll be there for the critical votes, and I’m working closely with leadership to ensure that,” Gottheimer said.

“I’ve been in close contact with [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries and [House Minority Whip] Katherine Clark; that will remain true,” Sherrill said. “They have said they think it’s important I run for governor, because that is a key piece of how we start to build back the Democratic Party in the wake of the last election. I am going to work closely with them to make sure I continue to deliver the votes that New Jersey needs.”

Sherrill added that when the House voted last week on H.R. 9495, probably the most noteworthy bill to have come up since Gottheimer and Sherrill launched their campaigns – liberal critics say it would empower the Trump administration to retaliate against nonprofit organizations it doesn’t like – she made sure she was there to vote against it. (Gottheimer missed that vote; he had voted for the bill when it previously came up on November 12.)

“I’ve been making sure I keep close track of all of the votes – are they bipartisan, are they going to pass with overwhelming majorities? If there’s any doubt, then I’m down here,” she said. “I knew we were going to lose [the H.R. 9495 vote], but I think the community really wanted me to weigh in on it and it was important to people to show them where I stood, so I made sure I was down here for that.”

But even still, that likely means both will miss a great many votes and other legislative activity on days when nothing especially contentious is coming up in Washington. Such absences are certain to draw criticism from their gubernatorial opponents; one fellow Democratic candidate, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, chastised them in October for running for re-election to the House at all, saying that they should have let someone else take their place in Congress if they were going to spend so much of 2025 campaigning for governor.

“During these important times in a surely close Congress, you outright lie to your constituents about wanting to represent them in Washington when, in reality, you have no intention to do so,” Fulop told Sherrill and Gottheimer, neither of whom were officially in the governor’s race at the time. “It begs the question about what else a person lies about and what their goals truly are.”

Of course, it’s not just Sherrill and Gottheimer who will have to make sure they’re down in Washington when they’re needed. The extremely tight margins in the House will mean that any New Jersey member, from either party, could in theory be the deciding vote on important bills that the Republican majority attempts to get through the House.

Within the past year, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) and the late Reps. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark) and Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) all missed extended series of votes due to medical troubles (Watson Coleman was fine, but Payne and Pascrell later died); Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) skipped votes here and there in order to campaign for the Senate, which became an issue during his primary race against First Lady Tammy Murphy; and former Senator Bob Menendez didn’t cast a single vote in his final months in the Senate due to his trial on corruption charges. Now that the GOP margin in the House is even tighter than before, those types of absences could have important repercussions going forward.

And for the two New Jersey members most likely to face competitive races in 2026, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) and Rep.-elect Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), every vote that they are there for presents a potential political landmine that could be used by their general election opponents.

Large majorities in one direction or another provide lots of protection for members to miss votes or vote against their own party; just look at what happened last year in the New Jersey Legislature, when Democrats put up a controversial overhaul of the state’s records laws but had a big enough majority to let some vulnerable members vote against it. But that won’t be the case in the 119th Congress; with the House so closely divided, every vote truly matters.