Bergen doesn’t plan to challenge Sherrill, but he doesn’t rule it out either

Assemblyman Brian Bergen (R-Denville) said he does not intend to challenge Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) for a seat in Congress Saturday, though he declined to fully close the door on a possible congressional bid.

“The answer is right now, no,” Bergen said on the New Jersey Globe Power Hour. “They’re redrawing the congressional map. I don’t know what that map is going to look like. We have a great candidate in Rosemary Becchi, who I think could run again and run and do well, so I don’t plan on running for Congress, no. Now, this is politics so things can change every single day.”

Bergen, a rising star in Republican Party politics, took office last January, winning the Assembly seat vacated by the retirement of longtime Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris Township), who chose to run for Morris County surrogate instead of seeking re-election.

Sherrill took her own seat in 2019 after defeating Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) for retiring Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen’s (R-Harding) seat.

Becchi, a former U.S. Senate tax attorney and lobbyist, has returned to her issues-advocacy non-profit, Jersey 1st, in the wake of last year’s defeat. It’s not clear whether she intends to run again, though the group will allow her to publicly remain in the state’s political space should she launch another bid.

If she chooses against another congressional campaign, Bergen could step in, though he said it’d still be an unlikely choice.

“If the situation changes — Rosemary’s not running, the map’s different and I think there’s chance to win, I could possibly run — but I highly doubt it,” he said.

If nothing else, such a race would feature candidates with resume similarities.

Sherrill was a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Navy before becoming a Russian policy officer, a post she left to become an assistant U.S. Attorney.

Bergen flew helicopters for the U.S. Army, earning a Bronze Star, before leaving to open a landscaping company.

“It’d be a fantastic race,” he said. “I think we should just bet it on the Army-Navy game.”