What happens to their House seat if Josh or Mikie is elected governor?

Imagine this: America wakes up the morning after the 2024 election to find that Democrats picked up six seats and have secured a precarious 218-217 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This could be a huge deal for the New Jersey Governor’s race in 2025, since the success of one of the two House members interested in running for governor, Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) or Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), would end the Democratic majority and bring the people’s house to a standstill until a new election is held.

That could take six months, and determining control of the House could cost $100 million.

Vacancies in the U.S. House of Representatives are filled uniquely.  Unlike other offices, where there are appointments or special election conventions, only voters can send someone to the peoples house.  There is no way around that.

In New Jersey, it’s up to the governor to decide when a special election will be held, and mostly the seats remain empty for a while.  After Gov. Jim Florio was inaugurated in 1990, he declined to order a new election, so his 1st district congressional seat remained vacant until November when voters picked his replacement.

The governor isn’t obligated to issue the writ immediately.

But if a win by Gottheimer or Sherrill leaves the House at 217-217, it’s unlikely they could avoid immediately calling a new election.

It would take a while to fill the seat: a special primary – organization lines wouldn’t matter since it would be just the one office – would be held not less than 70 days or more than 76 days after the Governor issues the writ of election.  The earliest date for a primary would be March 31.

The general election would come not less than 64 days or more than 70 days after the primary, but since the law was initially written in 1957, deadlines have changed.  It now takes two weeks to certify the results of a primary election – in the old days, it took just a couple of days – so the 64 days would probably be calculated from the certification date.

That potentially puts the special election somewhere between June 17 and June 23 if voting machines from the June 2 primary election.

After the last round of congressional redistricting, the House seats currently occupied by Gottheimer and Sherrill strongly favor Democrats.  But there may be factors – is Joe Biden in his sixth year as president, or is Donald Trump back? – that could influence the outcome.  The turnout model for a free-standing House election – one that triggers national attention (Steve Kornacki might return to New Jersey, which would be great) – would be tough to calculate.

Does anyone really want to predict how John McKeon would do against Nick Mangold in a free-standing special election in NJ-11 with Joe Biden as president?

If Gottheimer were to become governor, possible Democratic successors in the 5th district could include: Bergen County Commissioner Tracy Silna Zur; Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes, who has $875,463 in a federal campaign account; Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich; Bergen County Democratic Vice Chair Balpreet Grewal-Virk; Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Lisa Swain (D-Fair Lawn); Assemblywoman Ellen Park (D-Englewood Cliffs); and Assemblyman Christopher Tully (D-Bergenfield).

If Democrats wanted to play outside the box, they could go with former New York Giants star Justin Tuck,  a Fort Lee resident who now works at Goldman Sachs, or New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum, who grew up in Bergen County and worked as an intern in Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg’s office.

Republicans could run State Sen. Holly Schepisi (R-River Vale) or Nick De Gregorio, a U.S. Marine combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; De Gregorio narrowly lost a primary in 2022 after Gottheimer spent money against him to draw a weaker general election opponent.

In the 11th district, a short list of Democrats for Sherrill’s seat might include: McKeon (D-West Orange), who appears headed for the State Senate; Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill (D-Montclair); Alixon Collazos-Gill and Livingston Councilwoman Rosaura Bagolie, who are likely headed to the State Assembly after this year’s election; Passaic County Commissioner John Bartlett, who spent five months seeking the nomination in 2018 and raised $300,000 — $200,000 of which is still in his warchest — before dropping out to clear the race for Sherrill;’ former Woodland Park Mayor Keith Kazmark, who mulled a House run in 2018;  New Jersey Democratic State Committee Executive Director Saily Avelenda; Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association and a potential 2025 gubernatorial candidate; South Orange Village President Sheena Collum; Livingston Councilman Shawn Klein;  Rev. Ronald Slaughter, a West Orange resident and the pastor of the St. James A.M.E. Church in Newark; and Eastern Atlantic State Regional Council of Carpenters Assistant Executive Secretary-Treasurer Anthony Abrantes.

An outside-the-box candidate in a special election could be former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes), who represented parts of the current 11th under the old map.

The Republican bench could include: State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Montville); Assemblymen Brian Bergen (R-Denville) and Christian Barranco (R-Jefferson); Assemblywoman Aura Dunn (R-Mendham), who began her career working on Capitol Hill for U.S. Senator Arlen Specter and as a lobbyist for Sesame Street; Morris County Surrogate Heather Darling; and 2020 GOP nominee Rosemary Becchi, a former U.S. Senate Finance Committee staffer.  Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains), who challenged Sherrill in 2018, could make another bid.   Others, like Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco (R-Boonton) and State Sen. Kristin Corrado (R-Totowa), have passed on a House race before.

Four years ago, former Gov. Chris Christie touted his wife, Mary Pat, as a potential challenger to Sherrill, but she didn’t run.  Right now, she’s a candidate for the board of directors of a Pennsylvania bank on a ticket backed by George Norcross; that election is on October 4.

Christie himself could run; by 2026, using the well of the House to bloviate might appeal to him; so would the national focus of a race to determine control of the House.