By Matt Rooney
Democrats would love you to believe that Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ-02) is suddenly in danger of losing his South Jersey congressional seat, Save Jerseyans.
There’s just one problem: their biggest donors and political organizations don’t appear to be buying what they’re selling.
Earlier this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) added New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District to its list of 2026 targets, fueling speculation that Democrat Zack Mullock might have a legitimate shot at unseating the Republican incumbent.
But with Election Day just two weeks away, the financial picture tells a considerably less dramatic story.
As of October 20th, there is no identifiable district-specific independent expenditure by House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ principal House-focused super PAC, supporting Mullock. Nor is there evidence of a significant direct DCCC financial commitment to the race.
That’s a rather conspicuous omission for a supposedly competitive congressional district.
According to publicly available campaign finance trackers, approximately $405,000 in outside expenditures have been reported in support of Mullock during the general election.
Most of that money comes from smaller Democratic-aligned organizations, including approximately $252,000 from AB PAC, $100,000 from The Turnout Project, and $51,000 from Voice of the Electorate.
That’s nothing… but it’s also a pittance for a congressional race in support of a guy with no name recognition outside of his home base. It’s also hardly the kind of multimillion-dollar national spending blitz typically associated with a serious effort to topple an entrenched incumbent.
Then there’s the inconvenient matter of the actual election results.
Van Drew’s district became even more Republican following the 2021 congressional redistricting process. Under the old lines, Donald Trump carried NJ-02 by approximately three percentage points in 2020. Under the new map, which added Republican-leaning territory in Ocean County, Trump’s reconstructed advantage increased to roughly five points.
That was before the district moved even further right politically.
Trump carried the current NJ-02 by approximately 13 points in 2024, an eight-point Republican improvement over his reconstructed 2020 performance.
And Van Drew’s own electoral record is even more impressive.
In 2022, he defeated Democrat Tim Alexander by nearly 19 percentage points, winning 58.9% of the vote.
Two years later, Van Drew defeated Democrat Joe Salerno by nearly 17 points, winning 58.1% and prevailing by more than 62,000 votes.
In other words, Van Drew hasn’t merely survived in his redrawn district. He’s won two consecutive elections by landslide margins approaching 20 points.
None of this means Mullock can’t benefit from a favorable national political environment. Funky things happen in “wave” cycles if indeed a blue wave does crash on our shores in two weeks. It does mean that declarations of Van Drew’s imminent political demise are running well ahead of the available evidence.
Putting a congressional district on a target list costs nothing. Actually trying to flip it costs millions.
For all the breathless speculation about NJ-02, the Democrats’ biggest national financial players have yet to demonstrate that they consider defeating Van Drew a spending priority.
And given the district’s increasingly Republican voting patterns, it’s not difficult to understand why national Democratic strategists might be reluctant to open their checkbooks.
Until that changes, the increasingly fashionable narrative that Van Drew is in serious trouble looks a lot more like Democratic wishcasting than a conclusion supported by the money or the election results.
In politics, talk is cheap. Television ads aren’t.
And neither are 17-point victories.
