Credit: Mark J. Bonamo
State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, Democratic candidate in the 2nd Congressional District
The candidates in the 2nd Congressional District race, Republican Seth Grossman and Democratic state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, are far apart on policy even though they both consider themselves conservatives.
The two men are seeking to fill the seat of retiring GOP incumbent Frank LoBiondo, a more than 20-year veteran who leaned more to the center than to the right. Grossman represents the most conservative edge of the Republican party and is a major supporter of President Donald Trump. Van Drew is a conservative Democrat. Their platforms differ sharply, not least over what it means to be a sensible, rational conservative.
Grossman is an Atlantic City resident and former councilman, former Atlantic County freeholder and Somers Point attorney; Van Drew, a dentist, has been a state Senator since 2008. They are competing in a district that is largely working-class, with wide swaths of rural farmland. It includes parts of Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Ocean counties. The district, the largest geographically in the state, then includes all of southernmost New Jersey, encompassing all of Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Salem counties.
Grossman would repeal Obamacare
One issue that Grossman and Van Drew disagree on is healthcare. The passage in 2010 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), backed by President Barack Obama, motivated Republicans to try to repeal and replace the law. Despite major Republican gains in the years since, including control of both houses of Congress, the party has so far failed in this effort. The GOP’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) of 2017 bill, which was meant to replace the ACA, narrowly passed in the House
