Marine veteran launches challenge to Gottheimer in New Jersey

Marine veteran Nick De Gregorio on Wednesday launched a bid to oust Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D) in New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District, hoping to oust the moderate lawmaker whom the Republicans’ campaign arm has labeled a vulnerable Democrat.

De Gregorio — a Republican who served in the Marines for nine years completing tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa — said in his campaign announcement video that he is running because “our country is dangerously off course.”

“Washington is leaderless. It’s run by career politicians, radicals, socialists, who care more about their own political agenda than they do about the people that they’ve sworn an oath to serve,” De Gregorio said in the video, which showcased photos of President Biden, Gottheimer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)

“I swore an oath too, and this is not what I fought for. History will define us by what we do right here and now for the next generation of Americans. The fight for our future is not in some distant land anymore. It’s right here at home. Now is the time to beat back socialism. Now is the time to safeguard our God given rights and liberties,” he added.

De Gregorio is the third Republican to launch a campaign that seeks to take on Gottheimer from the right, joining Frank Pallotta, the district’s 2020 GOP nominee, and Nicholas D’Agostino, a Sussex County school board member.

Gottheimer, a co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, made headlines in recent weeks as a prominent figure in the negotiations over the bipartisan infrastructure bill and social spending package. 

He is on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s list of vulnerable Democrats. His district is one of the party’s 70 targets for next year’s midterm elections.

In 2020, Cook Political Report rated the district solid Democrat. Gottheimer won the race by just over 7 percentage points.

In a statement on his website, De Gregorio pointed to increasing taxes, business and jobs fleeing and classrooms becoming “testing grounds for radical political ideology,” which he said he all being driven by “the career politicians and insiders, who are too busy serving themselves in Washington to care about the mess they have created for the rest of us here at home.”

In his announcement video he recounted his memory from Sept. 11, 2001, when he was 16 years old and was just 12 miles from Ground Zero. The Marine veteran said it was on that day that he decided to enlist in the armed services.

“None of us will ever forget that day. I was 16 on 9/11, when those terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. We could hear the roar of the fighter jets over our classroom, and we could see the thick black smoke coming from the skyline at the Ridgewood lookout point. That was the day that I decided I needed to take action and to serve my country in uniform,” he said.

He added that after serving nine years in the Marines he did not think he would have to serve again, but said the current state of the country has driven him to jump into the race.

Gottheimer in a statement to The Hill said that “If Nick emerges as the candidate, I am glad to see that he agrees with me on issues like opposing socialism.”

“Everyone knows how much I believe in bipartisan governing,” he added.

Updated at 6:24 p.m.