Will Democrats ever be able to defeat Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) in South Jersey’s 2nd congressional district? Democratic nominee Joe Salerno thinks so, and he’s brandishing an internal poll that he says proves it.
According to the poll, which was conducted by the Democratic polling firm Global Strategy Group, Van Drew has a 50%-42% lead over Salerno, a tech entrepreneur from Cape May County.
Salerno may have more potential room to grow, though, since only 32% of respondents are familiar with him, whereas 79% of respondents have already heard of Van Drew. The poll tested a wide variety of positive messaging on Salerno and negative messaging on Van Drew; after respondents heard those messages, Salerno took a 50%-44% lead.
Salerno’s internal is the first poll of the 2nd district that has been released this cycle; in fact, it’s the first publicly available poll of any House general election in New Jersey since a Democratic internal poll of the 7th district from January.
Van Drew was first elected to the 2nd district, which includes South Jersey cities like Atlantic City and Vineland, as a Democrat in 2018 before famously defecting to the Republican Party in 2019 amid the first impeachment of Donald Trump. The congressman has held onto his conservative-leaning seat since then, winning a 59%-40% blowout against Democrat Tim Alexander in 2022.
That landslide result convinced many Democrats that the 2nd district is no longer winnable in the near future, and political forecasters like the Cook Political Report don’t rate the district as competitive this year. But Salerno, who narrowly defeated Alexander in the June Democratic primary, is working to prove that he can turn his fight against Van Drew into a real race.
The negative messages tested in Salerno’s poll provide some potential strategies for doing that: painting Van Drew – arguably New Jersey’s most conservative member of Congress – as a pro-Trump, anti-abortion, election-denying extremist. The poll’s messaging on Salerno, meanwhile, depicts him as a bipartisan businessman who will fight for Social Security and against abortion bans.
In order for that message to go anywhere, Salerno will likely need more money than he’s currently got; as of June 30, Salerno had $250,000 in his campaign warchest, while Van Drew had $1.1 million. (In Van Drew’s 2020 contest, for comparison, Democrat Amy Kennedy spent more than $5 million attacking Van Drew, but came up a few points short.)
The poll also tested the presidential race in the district, giving former President Donald Trump a 50%-44% lead over Vice President Kamala Harris; his lead falls to 46%-43% when independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Libertarian Chase Oliver are included. That’s approximately in line with Trump’s 52%-47% victory in the district in the 2020 presidential election.
Neither presidential candidate is hugely popular in the district, though: Trump’s favorability ratings are 47%-51%, and Harris’s are 44%-53%. Current President Joe Biden is even less popular, sporting a 40%-59% rating.
The Global Strategy Group poll was conducted from August 5-8 on behalf of the Joe Salerno campaign, with a sample size of 400 likely New Jersey voters and a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.