Reps. Andy Kim, Jeff Van Drew, and Donald Norcross win reelection to Congress in South Jersey

Democratic Reps. Andy Kim and Donald Norcross and Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew all won reelection Tuesday night to their congressional seats representing parts of South Jersey.

Kim, 40, held off challenger Bob Healey to win a third term in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District based in Burlington County and parts of Mercer and Monmouth Counties. The Associated Press called the race shortly after 11 p.m.

Healey, 39, a former punk rocker-turned-executive in his family’s Viking Yacht Co., had spent more than $4 million of his family’s money in his unsuccessful bid to upset Kim.

“I’m standing on this stage on Nov. 8 as a newly reelected congressman because I believe we can heal this country,” Kim said to a giddy crowd at his election party in Mount Laurel, after the race was called.

“This election is not just about this election,” Kim said. “It’s not just about Nov. 8. It’s not just about 2022. It’s about this moment in our country, and this recognition that what is happening right now doesn’t have to be this way.”

Healey did not concede the race, putting out a statement shortly after midnight saying he’s waiting for results from Mercer County, where voting machines were down all day, requiring manual tabulation at the County Board of Elections.

“As with every election, total vote tabulation requires patience in order to fully see the outcome of the race,” Healey said. “We are eager to see the rest of the vote results pour in from Mercer County over the next few days.”

By early Wednesday, nearly all votes had been tabulated.

In the 2nd District, Van Drew, a Republican elected four years ago as a Democrat, easily won a third term, defeating Democrat Tim Alexander in deep South Jersey.

The 2nd District includes all of Cape May, Atlantic, Cumberland, and Salem Counties and portions of Gloucester and Ocean Counties. It was redrawn this year to reinforce the incumbent.

Shortly after 11 p.m., the Associated Press declared Van Drew the winner over Alexander, a former detective with the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office and, more recently, a civil rights attorney. He also worked as a prosecutor for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

Norcross was elected to a fifth term in New Jersey’s 1st District centered in the Democratic strongholds of Camden and Gloucester Counties.

An electrician by trade and former head of the South Jersey AFL-CIO, Norcross faced a familiar challenger in Republican Claire Gustafson, a former member of the Collingswood school board, whom he defeated last time around.

The day started with a glitch in Mercer County, part of the 3rd District, as election officials reported all voting machines throughout the county were down, but ballots would still be counted manually, potentially delaying results.

At the Groveville Fire Company in Mercer County, voters filled a small room and waited to mark paper ballots with wide Sharpies. They then slipped the ballots into one of two black boxes the size of filing cabinets, which were supposed to have scanned the ballots but were simply storing them.

Some voters were unfazed by the glitch, but others were infuriated.

”Why am I not surprised?” said Nicole Moskal, who voted for Healey. ”We’re voting with Sharpies like it’s our first election, like we’re inventing democracy, like it’s Iraq.”

But Nathaniel Walker, Mercer County’s superintendent of elections, said that voters were casting ballots as normal, Sharpies and all, and that ballots were scanned at the Board of Elections location, “just as they would at the polling location.” (On Wednesday, Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello asked the county prosecutor to investigate whether there had been any interference with the machines.)

About 744,000 voters cast ballots prior to Election Day in New Jersey, according to statistics compiled by the Associated Press, including mail-in and early in-person voting, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans by about 3-1.

In the 3rd District, the race between Kim and Healey played out relentlessly on television ads, mostly in the Philly media market. And the spending reflected that.

The two men, who both live in Moorestown and voted Tuesday about a mile apart, poured a combined $10 million into the race, Kim’s third contest against a self-funding multimillionaire. In all, as of Oct. 19, spending in the campaign had topped $10 million.

Healey lent $2.2 million to his campaign, which reported raising a total of $4 million and spending all but $227,557 of that.

In addition, his mother, Ellen Healey, donated $2 million to a super PAC she founded, Garden State Advance, which had spent $1.76 million as of Oct. 19, mostly in ads against Kim, including a $979,000 media buy Sept. 27, according to campaign finance reports.

Kim reported raising a total of $6.5 million, primarily through small donations, and still had about $1.9 million on hand as of Oct. 19. He campaigned on his record in Congress in controlling health-care costs, including authoring a bill that is now law that caps prescription-drug costs for seniors on Medicare to $2,000 a year.

» READ MORE: N.J. Rep. Andy Kim has to beat an ex-punk rocker turned yacht dealer to serve another term

By contrast, the race in the 2nd District was a sleepy affair, with incumbent Van Drew running ads on local talk radio and buying a billboard on the Black Horse Pike. His challenger ran an energetic but resource-poor campaign.

Tuesday morning, at a polling place in Ventnor, a Democratic voter named Lisa said she had voted for Alexander but knew nothing about him.

“I know more about John Fetterman,” she said, reflecting all the ads playing out on Philly television. She declined to give her last name.

A 52-year-old social worker who also declined to give his name said he had always voted Democrat until recently. He said he was tired of hearing about cultural issues.

“I do not need to hear about gender rights, gay rights,” he said, adding that he was himself gay. “They don’t put food on my table. They don’t put a security blanket over my head.”

Van Drew’s switch to the Republican Party, and an accompanying pledge of loyalty to then-President Donald Trump, his vote against certifying the results of the 2020 election, his votes against abortion rights, and his sticking to hard-right Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared to do little to dampen the base of enthusiasm he has honed over four years as a congressman and, before that, a state senator.

Alexander was unable to raise more than $471,000, and according to figures compiled by AdImpact, which tracks political ad spending, his campaign spent virtually no money on ads of any kind, other than $1,500 for a banner plane ad that flew over beaches on Sept. 10.

Nonetheless, he was endorsed by a wide swath of unions and politicians as well as Collective Future, a group that works to elect Black candidates.

Van Drew raised about $3 million. He spent just $133,785 on advertising, according to AdImpact, running ads on local talk radio and a billboard on the Black Horse Pike in Mays Landing.

Norcross was considered the heavy favorite — the 1st District last elected a Republican in 1972 — but there was less certainty in South Jersey Democratic politics since the upset of former State Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Norcross ally, by Republican truck driver Edward Durr in 2021. Durr had raised just $10,000.

Elsewhere, in the 7th District, incumbent Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, elected in 2018, conceded Wednesday morning to former State Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., whose win flips the seat to Republican and gives the state its third Republican congressman. Malinowski was the incumbent considered most at risk in his battle against Kean, the son of the former governor. Spending in that race had reached about $18 million, according to reports.