Congressman Talks About His Career, Attitudes, Faith and Future
During the campaign for the 2nd Congressional District seat that culminated in Republican Jeff Van Drew’s easy victory over Democrat Joe Salerno on Nov. 5, candidate residency was at issue between them in a debate at Stockton University.
Van Drew said Salerno, having moved into the district, in two months registered to vote, and then a month later announced he was running for Congress. Salerno sold his company and moved from Mercer County to Lower Township in Cape May County in 2023.
Salerno said in reply that Van Drew didn’t live here anymore, that he lived in Washington, D.C.
“That’s really a silly statement,” Van Drew told the Herald while traveling between Atlantic and Salem counties. “If you are a member of Congress from the state of Hawaii you are not going home every weekend.”
Van Drew said he considers it a luxury to have a drive that is only three, four, sometimes up to six hours away. During the week he stays in a studio apartment in Washington, and he is home every week, providing there is nothing that demands he remain at the capital.
The latest unofficial ballot totals from Tuesday had Van Drew with about 58% of the votes, 211,210, compared to Salerno’s approximately 41%, 147,966.
Van Drew was not born in South Jersey, he was born in New York City. But he established himself in Dennis Township, which he has called home for 42 years. He operated a dental practice in Atlantic County, which he ran for 30 years, although some speculated that he had to run his practice out of a van due to all the traveling he did for elected office.
The congressman, 71, was first elected to the House as a Democrat in 2018. Previously he was a Dennis Township committeeman and served as a fire commissioner and volunteer fireman.
“I still am,” Van Drew said in an earlier interview.
Later, as mayor of Dennis and as a Cape May County freeholder, he donated his full salary as mayor to charity. What did he give it to?
“I donated to lots of different things,” he said. “One thing easy to recall is, when you go into Dennis Township on certain roads, there are signs that say, ‘“’Welcome to Dennis Township.’ I paid for that with my salary.”
Van Drew said sometimes money from his salary went to people who lost their home due to a fire or who were battling cancer, for example.
He served on the freeholder board from 1995 to 1998, and then again from 2001 to 2002, when he left after he was elected to the state Assembly.
At the time, there was speculation that Van Drew had his sights set on the congressional seat held by Republican Frank LoBiondo from 1995 to 2019. Van Drew, however, did not cast his hat into that ring until LoBiondo chose not to run again at the end of his 12th term.
Instead, Van Drew, a popular Democrat who was still living in Dennis Township, sought and won the First District Assembly seat held by Sea Isle City’s Jack Gibson, and in 2008 he won the First District Senate seat, replacing state Sen. Nick Asselta. Van Drew served in the state Senate for 10 years.
On Nov. 29, 2017, Van Drew decided to carry his enthusiasm for public office to the U.S. Congress, saying he would run for LoBiondo’s open seat, aiming “to bring economic opportunity and good jobs to South Jersey.”
In 2018 he defeated Republican opponent Seth Grossman. He switched parties in 2019, citing pressure by the Democratic leadership to vote for the first efforts to impeach President Donald Trump. Since then, he successfully ran for reelection against Democrats Amy Kennedy in 2020, Tim Alexander in 2022 and Salerno this fall.
Assemblyman Van Drew
Van Drew began a push for a community college branch in Cape May County in 1994, before he was a freeholder. At the time, he said, Cape May was the only county in New Jersey without a community college. An Atlantic Community College branch was located in a strip mall in Rio Grande.
He said it was difficult for students to travel to Atlantic County to take a full load of classes and ran for freeholder on the issue. In 2002, the year he became an Assemblyman, he helped break ground on the institution known as Atlantic Cape Community College. The first classes were held in September 2005.
“I still have a soft heart for the college, and I got it a grant for the BizHub,” he said. “The college is the kind of thing that, when you went to bed at night, it felt good.”
He said the same thing about keeping the Vineland Developmental Center open.
Another of his local projects was his fight to eliminate traffic lights on the Cape May County section of the Garden State Parkway, with the removal project breaking ground in 2013. The initiative was begun in response to fatal accidents at the interchanges, as well as traffic tie-ups during the tourist season.
“Some people said, ‘Ah, just an election gimmick,’ but every few years someone died at one of those intersections,” he said. “We got the overpasses put in.”
Throughout much of his political career, Van Drew would talk about having the “fire in the belly” that was needed to get things accomplished.
He often used self-deprecating terms while describing his enthusiasm for trying to get things done.
“I might be short, and I might be skinny, but I will fight like hell …” for or against something affecting his constituents, the congressman would say.
“I might not say it as much, but I’m a whole lot tougher than I look,” he said.
Van Drew said he was criticized for a number of things he would do, such as standing outside stores and supermarkets to talk to constituents. He said people told him he would never get elected that way, and it was took much work. He said today, as a congressman, he will grab a handful of messages at the end of the day and return calls from constituents.
“That is my supermarket visits, today,” he said. “I try to help people with issues, and no one doubts I work my hardest and try my best. That’s my only promise.”
Van Drew has said at local chamber of commerce meetings that he refuses to vote for so-called omnibus bills that carry with them all kids of unfavorable conditions. As a first-term congressman, he signed an amicus brief to contest the 2020 election results. Since then, he has been reelected two more times, and his name was mentioned as a possible U.S. Senate candidate, a designation that went to Cape May businessman Curtis Bashaw. Bashaw lost to Democratic Rep. Andy Kim on Nov. 5.
Asked specifically whether the fire in his belly was still burning, Van Drew said, “When I don’t feel it I will say my work is done.”
Part of what drives him is his personal faith, which he said is deep, and something he referred to during his campaign victory speech. Asked to describe his faith, he said, “I am very imperfect, and I am not one to wear his faith on his sleeve. We are all sinners, and as you get on in years you understand that more.”
Van Drew said it is his faith that carries him through life’s roller coaster, and he makes a habit of praying every day. He said he believes in what to some might sound like a trite statement, “Faith, family and freedom,”adding, “You can’t go too far wrong if you believe in them.”
For now, the congressman has no plans to call it quits, saying that, as he once considered his ultimate goal to be mayor of Dennis Township, “it is an amazing, tremendous honor to be a U.S. congressman.”
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
