Josh Gottheimer

Joshua S. Gottheimer ( ; born March 8, 1975) is an American politician, attorney, writer, and public policy adviser who has served as the U.S. representative for since 2017. The district stretches along the northern border of the state from New York City's densely populated metropolitan suburbs in Bergen County and rural territory in northern Passaic Counties.

A member of the Democratic Party, Gottheimer was a speechwriter for Bill Clinton and served as an adviser to the presidential campaigns of Wesley Clark, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton. He has also worked for Burson Cohn & Wolfe, the Federal Communications Commission, Ford Motor Company, and Microsoft.

Early life and education

Gottheimer was born in Livingston, New Jersey, on March 8, 1975. Gottheimer is the son of Jewish parents, a preschool teacher and a small business owner. Growing up, Gottheimer stocked shelves at his father's store. At the age of 16, Gottheimer served as a U.S. Senate page for Frank Lautenberg, a senator from New Jersey. Through high school and college, Gottheimer held internships with C-SPAN, the secretary of the Senate, and Tom Foley, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gottheimer graduated from West Essex High School in 1993. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American history Phi Beta Kappa and ''summa cum laude''. He was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, master and president of the Interfraternity Council, a member of Sphinx Senior Society, and a University Scholar. While at Penn, he served on the "rapid response team" for Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign. After Clinton's reelection, Gottheimer attended Pembroke College, Oxford, on a Thouron Award, studying toward a Ph.D. in modern history. In 2004, Gottheimer graduated from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor.

Early career

Gottheimer joined the Clinton administration as a speechwriter in 1998, at age 23, working in the administration until its end in 2001. While attending law school, he worked as an adviser for Wesley Clark's 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, and Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. After the 2004 election, Gottheimer worked for the Ford Motor Company, then became an executive vice president at Burson–Marsteller. From 2010 to 2012, he worked for the Federal Communications Commission, where he led an initiative related to broadband internet. He subsequently became a strategist at Microsoft.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2016

In the 2016 election, Gottheimer ran for the House of Representatives in , a seat that had been held by Republican Scott Garrett for seven terms since 2003. The 5th had historically been one of New Jersey's more Republican districts, but redistricting after the 2010 census made it slightly more Democratic by pushing it further into Bergen County'' ran an article discussing Gottheimer's Clinton ties (he was a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton and adviser for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign), describing him as a "protégé" of the Clintons and noting that Bill and Chelsea Clinton had appeared at a recent Manhattan fundraiser for Gottheimer, at which Chelsea introduced him as "something of a family member." The Gottheimer campaign's financial filings at the time showed that "about one dollar in six came directly from fellow alumni of the Clinton White House and campaigns...or from major donors and employees of consulting firms tied closely to the Clintons," including three former Clinton press secretaries and two former Clinton chiefs of staff.

The 2016 election saw corporate backing migrate from Garrett to Gottheimer, including support from throughout the finance sector — despite Garrett's influence as a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions. Garrett was criticized by industry insiders for having protested his party backing openly-gay Republican candidates, leading directly to Capital One, Goldman Sachs, PNC, State Farm, and Nomura ceasing payments to his political action committee; throughout the campaign, Gottheimer and national Democrats used this position, as well as Garrett's opposition to same-sex marriage and support for a bill allowing the denial of service to same-sex couples based on religious beliefs, to portray the congressman as a bigot who was too socially conservative for the district.

Gottheimer also received significant support from external super PACs, including the National Association of Realtors' PAC, which spent $1.3 million to promote him via television ads, and the House Majority PAC, which allocated $1.6 million to anti-Garrett ads. The PAC reiterated messaging that painted Garrett as "extreme" in his social conservatism, pointing also to his having opposed a ban on displaying Confederate flags in military cemeteries, hiring an airplane to fly over the Jersey Shore (during the July 4 holiday and Labor Day weekend) as it carried a banner reading "Scott Garrett - Move to Alabama," and releasing a statement that read: "More than a thousand miles and a hundred years separate Congressman Garrett's views from the values of New Jersey voters"; the House Majority PAC, overall, spent more money on anti-Garrett ads than they did in any other congressional district that year. By June 30, 2016, Gottheimer's official campaign had raised over $2.9 million, the second most of any 2016 House challenger from either party, whereas Garrett had $2.8 million in his campaign account. In the final fundraising quarter, through mid-October, Gottheimer raised an additional $1.1 million versus Garrett who brought in $540,000. Gottheimer ultimately acquired $4.3 million for his 2016 campaign, breaking the contemporaneous record for most funds raised in a New Jersey federal House race.

The race, overall, was characterized by media as "intensely personal," "marked by negative advertising," and "one of the region’s most bitter political races." Demonstratively, Garrett criticized Gottheimer "...for taking a donation from Ibrahim Al-Rashid, the son of a Saudi multimillionaire who pleaded guilty in 2014 to simple assault of his estranged wife"; Garrett also ran ads exaggerating a withdrawn civil claim against Gottheimer that alleged he intimidated and threatened a neighbor, in 2007, at his Washington, D.C. apartment building; and the end of the campaign season saw a flyer circulating that depicted Gottheimer with devil horns, which was interpreted as antisemitic, and that the Garrett team denounced but suggested may have been a "political ploy." Meanwhile, Gottheimer rebuked Garrett for voting against The Zadroga Act, which provided compensation and health coverage for first responders injured after 9/11: the Gottheimer campaign touted the support of retired North Arlington Police Chief Joseph Zadroga (whose son, James, was an NYPD officer who died after working at the World Trade Center site in the attack's aftermath), releasing a campaign ad in which Zadroga condemned Garrett as, "the only Jersey congressman to vote against health care for 9/11 responders," remarking: "For the life of me, I could not understand why Scott Garrett turned his back on hem" The Gottheimer campaign also falsely accused Garrett of being investigated for legislating in favor of payday loans after receiving campaign contributions from the industry. The Associated Press would go on to summarize the policy distinctions of the race as Gottheimer "itchinghimself as a fiscal conservative who is socially liberal, promising not to raise taxes while also pledging to fight for LGBT and abortion rights... nd claimingGarrett forced local residents to pay higher taxes by not fighting for federal grants," whereas Garrett, "touted his record of battling to shrink government and uphold the Constitution, and warned that Gottheimer was another big-spending Democrat who would ultimately force higher taxes."

In November 2016, Gottheimer defeated Garrett winning election to Congress with a strong showing in Bergen County where he won by 14% while losing Sussex, Warren, and Passaic counties. In the months leading up to election season, most analysts projected the district would "lean" in Garrett's favor, but, by early October, experts began considering the race a closer "toss-up" with Gottheimer's win considered an upset. When he was sworn in on January 3, 2017, Gottheimer became the first Democrat to represent the 5th district since 1981, when it was numbered the 7th prior to being reorganized in 1983.

2018

Gottheimer faced John McCann, a former Cresskill councilman, in his first race for re-election in 2018. In Gottheimer's first three months in office (in 2017) he raised $752,000, setting a New Jersey record for funds raised by a freshman congressman in this timeframe; during the second quarter of the 2018 cycle Gottheimer raised $1,500,000. The race was characterized mostly by McCann painting Gottheimer as an establishment Democrat (especially one connected to Nancy Pelosi) while Gottheimer defended himself as bipartisan and moderate, citing his work with local elected officials, votes for Republican legislation such as Kate's Law, and a "common ground" oriented approach to Donald Trump and fixing the Affordable Care Act. NJ.com noted that anti-Trump sentiment during the midterm elections likely helped Gottheimer, as McCann echoed the president on taxes, health care, and immigration; Gottheimer, meanwhile, stated that the midterms were less about Trump than "people really wanting to put aside extremism and the nastiness." Notably, McCann advocated for building a wall along the US-Mexico border, comparing the contemporaneous situation to "an open borders society like the European Union" and emphasizing the importance of immigrants assimilating to American culture, whereas Gottheimer spoke to the need for "tough border security" legislation to include a solution for Dreamers. The race became particularly inflamed when a Gottheimer campaign sign displayed by a supporter on their property had a swastika and the phrase "vote MAGA" spray painted on it; McCann was criticized for connecting the vandalism to, "Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters preadingmessages of hate" whereas Gottheimer was called out for fundraising off the incident and having subsequently denied doing so.

Gottheimer was reelected in 2018, defeating John McCann with 56% of the vote.

2020

In 2020, Gottheimer faced a primary challenge from a more progressive Democrat, Glen Rock councilwoman Arati Kreibich. According to Kreibich, she was ultimately pushed to challenge Gottheimer after he played a leading role in passing an emergency border funding bill that failed to provide certain aid and safeguards to detained migrants. Her platform also included environmental policy, as she touted her work to ban single-use plastic bags and transition Glen Rock to renewable energy as well as supported the Green New Deal, and she was in favor of Medicare For All. During the campaign Gottheimer remarked that, "...if Bernie Sanders, socialized medicine and extremism are more of your view, then my opponent is probably your candidate," whereas Kreibich characterized him as "Trump's favorite Democrat"; Representative Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts, Food and Water Action, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee endorsed Kreibich while Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Gottheimer; and Gottheimer promoted his bipartisan record, painting the fifth as a moderate swing district that could easily be flipped by a Republican opponent, while Kreibich argued that the constituency was "evolving", women were "waking up", and that Gottheimer failed to respond to these shifts. In July 2020, Gottheimer won the primary election with 70.1% of the vote.

Gottheimer was elected to his third term in the 2020 general election, defeating Republican nominee Frank Pallotta, a former Morgan Stanley director from Mahwah, with 53% of the vote. Though fifth district Republicans slightly outnumbered Democrats as of the 2016 election, Democrats in the district had since registered at twice the rate. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attacked Pallotta as "the subprime King of New Jersey", because, though Pallotta denied involvement, testimony implicated him in working with Morgan Stanley's subprime mortgage division. Pallotta described himself as a "fiscal conservative" while casting Gottheimer as a member of the "radical left" who voted with members of Congress such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez more than 80% of the time; like in 2016 and 2018 Gottheimer positioned himself, instead, as decidedly moderate. Gottheimer won the election with 53% of the vote, running ahead of Joe Biden who carried the district with 52% of the vote.

2022

Redistricting made the 5th somewhat safer for Gottheimer. The district lost its share of heavily Republican Warren County and most of its share of equally Republican Sussex County; these areas had been Garrett's base for most of Garrett's seven-term tenure. To make up for the loss in population, the 5th was pushed further into Bergen County, as far as Fort Lee, meaning that 75% of the district's voters were from Bergen County. This shift resulted in the district gaining 20,000 registered Democrats and losing 20,000 registered Republicans: though "unaffiliated" was still the largest voting bloc, representing 212,000 district voters (37%), Democrats now had 208,000 registered voters in the district (36%) versus 151,000 Republicans (26%). The new 5th was six points more Democratic than its predecessor. Had it existed in 2020, Biden would have won it with 58% of the vote; he carried the old 5th with 52%.

Gottheimer was accused of, in May 2022, influencing the Republican primary that would decide, between Frank Pallotta (his 2020 opponent) and Nick De Gregorio (a former Marine), who his eventual general election opponent would be. Gottheimer's campaign mailed flyers to Republican voters that referenced Donald Trump having endorsed Pallotta in 2020 and called him "too much like Trump," though the former president had not endorsed Pallotta in the 2022 primary. Media concluded that Gottheimer was trying to boost Pallotta's appeal amongst Republican voters, writing: "The strategy seems to be one Democrats are trying out in congressional and gubernatorial races across the country, interfering in Republican primaries to raise the profiles of the further-right candidates in the hopes they would be more easily defeated in the general election." Pallotta eventually won the primary, defeating De Gregorio by 1,475 votes.

As of October 2022, Gottheimer had $14 million in campaign funds, including $1.1 million he raised in the third quarter of 2022 and accounting for $2.4 million he had already spent on his 2022 re-election. At this point, for the entirety of the 2021-2022 cycle, Gottheimer had raised $7.9 million; he had raised $26.4 million since first running for Congress in 2015. With these numbers, Gottheimer raised the third-highest total of any House candidate for the 2022 cycle; meanwhile, his opponent, Frank Pallotta, had $64,000 remaining in campaign funds, having already spent $350,000.

Gottheimer was elected to his fourth term in November 2022, defeating Frank Pallotta with 54.7% of the vote. The competition in the 5th district often reflected issues that had been energizing voters nationally, such as abortion, inflation, and crime. For example, in an October debate, "...Pallotta hammered Gottheimer over rising inflation and crime, denouncing 'catch and release,' or more officially, cashless bail," whereas, "Gottheimer, like mostly all Democrats n the 2022cycle, tressedhis support for women’s reproductive rights. He said the overturning of ''Roe v. Wade'' already has meant grave consequences for women... ndcriticized Pallotta...for calling abortion 'manslaughter'". Gottheimer, furthermore, characterized Pallotta as a "far-right extremist" who would undermine the congressman's bipartisan, "commonsense" approach to legislating, whereas Pallotta argued that Gottheimer was aligned with New Jersey's, "new, extremely far-left sex education curriculum," which, he believed, allowed, "critical race theory oinfiltrat our schools and minds of our children," and that he "vehemently opposed." Gottheimer and Pallotta were opposed along party lines on a number of mainstream issues, including gun rights, support for the Inflation Reduction Act, police reform (especially the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which Pallotta criticized for limiting qualified immunity for law enforcement officers in civil suits), and voter identification laws.

2024

Gottheimer announced he would seek re-election to his fifth term in February 2024. At launch, the campaign had over $17 million in available funds, having raised $1.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and $4.9 million in the first half of the 2023-2024 cycle. By March 31, 2024, Gottheimer's campaign had $18.6 million cash-on-hand ($6.2 million of which was raised in the 23-24 cycle), more than double the amount in House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries' campaign account and four times Speaker Mike Johnson's total. By July 2024, Gottheimer had $19.4 million in campaign funds, having raised nearly $1.8 million during the second quarter of 2024 — his most successful quarter on record. His 2024 Republican opponent, Mary Jo Guinchard, meanwhile, had raised $74,933 through May 15 and spent $57,000 on her primary win against George Song. By early October, Gottheimer's campaign filings showed that he raised nearly $1.3 million in the latest quarter (the seventh consecutive fundraising quarter during which he raised more than $1 million) and $9.3 million, thus far, for the 2023-2024 cycle; his campaign "warchest" totaled nearly $20.3 million whereas Guinchard had $50,482 cash-on-hand and a $110,038 debt. Since first becoming a candidate in 2015, Gottheimer had raised over $37.6 million in campaign funds.

In December 2023, Mary Jo Guinchard became the first Republican to launch a 2024 campaign against Gottheimer. Guinchard was a former mayor of Tuxedo Park, New York who then resided in Ridgewood and ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for Bergen County commissioner in 2022 and 2023. At the Bergen County Republican party convention in March 2024, Guinchard (with 56% of votes) earned the group's endorsement to appear on the county line in the June primary, defeating Paramus school board member George Song (who earned 43% of the vote) and Sandy Gajapathy who earned five votes. Song would continue his campaign, but Guinchard defeated him in the June 2024 primary with 70% of the vote, earning the Republican nomination to take on Gottheimer in the November general election.

In March 2024, the day after Guinchard won the Bergen County GOP line, Gottheimer began criticizing her as a "right-wing extremist" and "MAGA Mary," claiming that she was opposed to abortion, against red-flag laws, and associated with "anti-government extremist groups and January 6th sympathizers." Later in March, Guinchard countered that "I don’t care about the acronym...I want America to be great. We’re not looking so great right now." She went on to explain that she is pro-life but in favor of exemptions for rape, incest, and maternal health while disagreeing with Gottheimer over his attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, which Gottheimer claimed "brainwashed" women by never considering abortions whereas Guinchard supported these clinics and remarked that "having a baby is a choice too." Guinchard, furthermore, connected Gottheimer to "big money in politics" and expressed support for term limits while decrying border policy — citing human trafficking and how "Every state's a border state," when "We’ve got military age men coming in nd wedon’t know where they are."

On October 18, 2024, ''The Record'' endorsed Gottheimer over Guinchard.

On October 22, 2024, Gottheimer was endorsed for re-election by the National Troopers Coalition, an organization that represents 42,000 state troopers across the United States. Later that week, Mary Jo Guinchard, Gottheimer's 2024 Republican opponent, joined the Republican candidate from New Jersey's 9th Congressional District (Billy Prempeh) at a local town hall where she pushed back against Gottheimer's support amongst law enforcement, saying, according to Insider NJ, that Gottheimer, "does not support police," claiming the recent endorsement, "was union support" and contrary to what "she has heard from police in the street and on the job." At the same town hall, Guinchard also argued that New Jersey public schools were "trying to indoctrinate our children."

Gottheimer was elected to his fifth term on November 5, 2024, defeating Mary Jo Guinchard with 54.5% of the vote. He lost Sussex and Passaic

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