With the historic vote on impeachment looming yesterday, New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew had still not confirmed that he is switching parties and joining President Donald Trump as a Republican.
Van Drew (D-2) — who in 2018, running as a Democrat, surprised many observers by winning in a South Jersey district where Trump enjoyed broad support — responded in a text Dec. 18 with a cryptic “nope” when asked whether he would make an announcement on his plans.
It’s been four days since news reports first emerged that Van Drew had met with Trump to seek the president’s blessing, and three days since five members of his staff resigned over what they called his “decision” to switch parties.
Van Drew, 66, a retired dentist who served four terms as a Democrat in the state Senate, has shunned interview requests.
At the Capitol on Tuesday, he did tell a gaggle of reporters: “I have not made a decision that I am willing to share with anybody […] I am re-evaluating my life and my thoughts.”
GOP talking point
One of only two Democrats who voted against the process of impeachment, Van Drew’s failure to formally switch sides before Dec. 18 allowed him to cast a vote on impeachment as a Democrat, handing Trump and the GOP a big talking point in their continuing campaign to cast the impeachment as an unlawful and strictly partisan matter.
In last night’s historic impeachment vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, Van Drew voted against both articles of impeachment, one of only two Democrats to do so. According to an NJ Advance Media report for nj.com, he sat with Republican members during the debate.
Credit: NJTV NewsTrump has repeatedly tweeted about Van Drew switching parties. On Saturday, he wrote “Thank you for your honesty, Jeff. All of the Democrats know you are right, but unlike you, they don’t have the ‘guts’ to say so.”
And on Monday, he tweeted: “Congressman Jeff Van Drew is very popular in our great and very united Republican Party. It was a tribute to him that he was able to win his heavily Republican district as a Democrat. People like that are not easily replaceable!”
National Republicans have said they welcome Van Drew, as has New Jersey state GOP chairman Doug Steinhardt. And on Monday, The New York Times reported that advisers to the president had told Van Drew that he would have the president’s support as a GOP candidate.
Closer to home, though, Van Drew has come under withering fire from both sides of the political divide, none of whom expressed any doubt about the accuracy of news reports about his intentions.
David Richter, a potential Republican opponent, called him an opportunist.
Democrats are labeling him a traitor.
Rough road ahead
“Jeff is for Jeff. I’m beyond disappointed,” said state Senate President Steve Sweeney of Gloucester County. “He betrayed everybody.”
Richter, who is seeking the Republican congressional nomination in Van Drew’s 2nd Congressional District, said he has heard an announcement will come next week.
He painted Van Drew as a man in a political fix. His impeachment vote is killing him with Democratic primary voters, as shown by several polls. And, Richter predicted, Van Drew will have a hard time as a Republican.
“First of all, he’s going to have to convince Republican voters in South Jersey that he has seen the light, that he woke up one day and realized he was in the wrong party, not because the polls told him to switch but for some reason that he discovered on his own, despite the fact that he endorsed Cory Booker for president, despite the fact that he supports Nancy Pelosi 91% of the time, despite the fact that he has supported the president only 7% of the time,” he said. “He’s going to have to go before Republican voters, before county conventions, before municipal Republican clubs and stand in front of Republicans and say, ‘I’m a different person now than I’ve been for the last 40 years of my life.’”
The Democratic chairs in the eight counties that fall within the 2nd Congressional District are demanding the return of their donations. Van Drew was sending out fundraising solicitations as a Democrat last week, after his reported meeting with Trump.
Reports have emerged in The Daily Beast and elsewhere that Van Drew once called Trump “crazy” and “unfit for office,” which could pose problems for him with GOP voters.
And Richter said if Van Drew were to win the Republican primary next June, he would still face a rough road in November.
“He’s going to face a Democratic nominee in the general election, and they’re going to have their knives out for him,” Richter said. “They’re not happy that he switched parties, especially not now and especially over this issue.”
On Monday, Brigid Callahan Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University, announced that she would be a running as a Democrat in Van Drew’s district.
