New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer launches campaign for governor

SOUTH HACKENSACK, New Jersey — Josh Gottheimer, a centrist House Democrat and prolific fundraiser who has won races in tough election cycles while angering his party’s progressives, announced his long-anticipated campaign for governor Friday.

Repeatedly invoking his “Jersey roots” at a highway diner in the North Jersey district he represents, Gottheimer outlined a governing plan built on four central ideas: lowering taxes; the state getting its money’s worth from government; creating more job opportunities; and growing the economy.

While he said he will fight to protect reproductive rights, improve the state’s transit system and support law enforcement, economics and affordability is central to his pitch to voters in a high-cost state with the nation’s highest property taxes.

“Living in Jersey has become too damn expensive. We pay too much in taxes, too much to live,” Gottheimer said. “It’s time for a reboot.”

Gottheimer can make the case that he has been a proven vote-getter in a Republican-leaning district. In 2016, he defeated the doctrinaire conservative Rep. Scott Garrett, who had held office for 14 years. Gottheimer proceeded to win reelection by a comfortable margin in the swing district, which became more safely Democratic in 2022 following redistricting.

But the 49-year-old Gottheimer faces a challenging political environment, as the party’s progressive base and Senator-elect Andy Kim upended the traditional party power structure that Gottheimer appears to be banking on.

During his eight years in office, Gottheimer has stressed bipartisanship and co-founded the “Problem Solver’s Caucus” in which an equal number of more moderate Democrats and Republicans sought to promote bipartisan governance, especially on issues like the budget and infrastructure — though the caucus suffered fractures this year.

He touted those efforts Friday and said he’d take the same ethic and record of bipartisanship to the state capital in Trenton.

“I’ll be an active, get-it-done, problem-solving governor,” Gottheimer said. “New ideas and endless energy are in my DNA.”

At home, Gottheimer has become New Jersey’s most vocal critic of New York City’s congestion pricing, taking a victory lap when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul put the ambitious plan on pause fearing electoral blowback, and vowing to continue the fight when she reintroduced a scaled-back version this week.

In the House, Gottheimer has largely voted with Democrats but has broken with the party on some high-profile votes.

As one of Israel’s biggest boosters, Gottheimer — who would be the first Jewish New Jersey governor — was one of 16 Democrats who voted with Republicans on a bill to block the Biden administration from withholding some weapons shipments to Israel. Gottheimer was also among a minority of Democrats who voted for a recent, controversial bill to strip alleged terrorist-supporting organizations of nonprofit status, something many on the left warned could empower Donald Trump to target his political enemies.

And as a representative of one of the nation’s wealthiest House districts, Gottheimer has been a major advocate of restoring the State and Local Tax Deduction [SALT] that was cut to $10,000 during the first Trump administration. Gottheimer in 2022, along with Rep. Mikie Sherrill — also expected to joint the governor’s race next week — withheld support for a time from voting for the Inflation Reduction Act because it did not lift the SALT cap, but eventually relented.

Gottheimer began his political career in the Clinton White House as a speechwriter and served on the Federal Communications Commission. A protege of Clinton adviser Mark Penn, Gottheimer followed him to Microsoft.

Despite angering many on the left, Gottheimer has faced just one serious primary challenge — in 2020 by Dr. Arati Kriebich, and he beat her by a two-to-one margin. But he enters the race at a time of tumult for New Jersey’s Democratic Party, whose balance of power was upset by the upstart Kim’s successful lawsuit to eliminate the “county line” that allowed Democratic county chairs to exercise influence in the primary system.

Gottheimer — an unabashed supporter of the county line — doubled down on it even as some of his gubernatorial rivals and many in the party abandoned it, even hooking up Middlesex County Democrats with a prominent lawyer who briefly helped defend it.

But in a post-line political world, money is expected to play an even larger role in campaigns — and Gottheimer has long been New Jersey’s most prolific congressional fundraisers.

The congressmember currently has a $20 million campaign warchest. And while he can’t transfer those funds to his gubernatorial campaign, he’s shown the ability to quickly raise millions. He’s also used his House campaign account last year to fund a “Jumpstart Jersey” initiative that was widely seen as laying the groundwork for his gubernatorial run.

Dustin Racioppi contributed to this report.