
When New Jersey’s primary results began rolling in a little over two weeks ago, many news outlets – among them the New Jersey Globe – were quick to declare victory on behalf of the state’s county Democratic organizations. Even without the county line, the tool that parties had long used to shape primary ballots in their favor, nearly every party-endorsed candidate won their primary, and it typically wasn’t close.
But that wasn’t true quite everywhere. Down in South Jersey’s 2nd congressional district, currently held by Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), Democratic voters nominated self-funding tech entrepreneur Joe Salerno over civil rights attorney Tim Alexander, the party’s unsuccessful 2022 nominee.
Salerno’s victory, which was close enough that it wasn’t called until more than a week after Election Day, came despite the fact that Alexander had the support of the Atlantic, Ocean, and Salem Democrats, accounting for more than half of the district’s Democratic primary vote. The district’s other three county organizations, in Cape May, Cumberland, and Gloucester Counties, opted not to make an endorsement in the race for a variety of different reasons.
With all the votes now tallied, Salerno officially beat Alexander 38% to 37%; another 21% went to engineer Carolyn Rush, while Rodney Dean, a ghost candidate with no apparent campaign presence, got 3%. Had the county line not been struck down by a federal judge, Alexander could probably have overcome that tiny deficit with big margins out of Atlantic and Ocean Counties, but without the line, he got swamped by Salerno’s most important advantage: money.

From the day he entered the race, Salerno had a major financial edge, which allowed him to directly contact voters to a much greater extent than Alexander or his other opponents. As of May 15, Salerno had raised $789,000 – more than half of which came from his own pockets – and spent $543,000. That dramatically overshadowed Alexander, who had raised just $173,000 and spent $170,000, while Rush had raised $125,000 and spent $29,000.
With no county lines on their primary ballots to guide them, voters were confronted with four not especially well-known Democratic candidates – and a narrow plurality of them went with the one who was spending lots of money to reach them.
Those fundraising totals also don’t include any spending that’s taken place since mid-May, and Salerno seems to have done quite a bit of paid media in the interim.
In the four 2nd district counties where such data are easily available, Salerno did noticeably better in the Election Day vote versus the early and mail-in vote, indicating a late surge in campaign activity. In Ocean County, for example, Alexander won mail votes 42% to 27% and early votes 36% to 30%, but Salerno won the Election Day vote 36% to 33%. That type of swing, repeated across the district, was just enough for Salerno to overcome Alexander’s pre-Election Day advantage and win the nomination.
The other chief factor that led to Salerno’s victory was that he, unlike his competitors, built up a real regional base in Cape May County that delivered him several thousand votes. Salerno, who lives in Cape May County’s Lower Township, won the county by a whopping 27 percentage points, 51% to 24%, over Alexander.
No other county in the district voted for any candidate by anywhere near that kind of margin. Salerno won Gloucester County by three points, while Alexander won Atlantic, Salem, and Cumberland Counties by four points and Ocean County by seven points.
In fact, most towns in the district outside of Cape May County were within a few percentage points one way or the other. Of Atlantic County’s 23 towns, for example, two were tied between Alexander and Salerno and another 14 had a final margin within the single digits.
The relatively even results across the district stand in stark contrast to typical New Jersey elections, where the county line pushes voters strongly towards one candidate or another. In previous years, competitive primaries usually occurred when multiple county parties were in disagreement with one another, creating a head-to-head battle between distinct geographical bases – but that may be a thing of the past without the county line.
Despite the many close towns, though, most voters don’t seem to have been voting at random. If they had been, one would expect Rodney Dean, who never reported raising any money or showing any other signs of life, to have gotten a sizable share of the vote simply by virtue of being on the ballot. But instead, he got just 1,235 votes districtwide, or 3.4% of the vote; voters were clearly able to distinguish between him and the three real candidates in the race.
Alexander, for what it’s worth, did seem to have a base in Galloway, where he lives, and in some towns with large Black communities like Salem, Bridgeton, and Atlantic City, who may have hoped to see a Black candidate win the nomination. But he didn’t get the kinds of margins out of those towns that he’d have needed to win the nomination, given Salerno’s money edge and dominance in Cape May County.
Presented with a race for a Democratic primary fight that ultimately might be futile, given the Republican lean of the 2nd district, most county and local organizations did not have much of an incentive to make sure their preferred candidate won. Alexander, Salerno, and Rush each got a solid share of endorsements around the district, but if those endorsers don’t go out and get votes for their candidate, how much does that really mean?
Now that Salerno has won the Democratic nomination, his focus shifts to the general election, which will be a much more challenging task than the already-tough fight he just won. Van Drew’s 2020 re-election, shortly after he defected from the Democratic Party, was one of the most closely watched contests in the country, but Democrats have since largely given up on beating him, and Van Drew beat Alexander 59%-40% in 2022. Salerno has a lot of work to do to prove that he can turn the 2nd district into a real race.
The bigger takeaway from the 2nd district primary, then, may be less about who won and more about how he won. The federal court order striking down the Democratic county line only applied to this year’s primary, but most New Jersey politicians expect that it will eventually be abolished for good – meaning this year was the first test of the likely new normal.
In many of this year’s contests, like Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City)’s re-election campaign and Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D-Delran)’s campaign for the open 3rd congressional district, local party organizations still came out on top after hard-fought campaigns. When faced with high-profile challengers in top-priority races, New Jersey’s political parties will still bring their A-game.
But in quieter contests like the 2nd district primary – where a candidate like Salerno can come in and outspend and outwork party organizations that aren’t hugely invested in the race – things could be set to change quite a bit. The county line was perfect for protecting underfunded party-endorsed candidates like Tim Alexander; with it potentially soon to be gone, organizations will have to adjust their strategies accordingly.