Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock won the Democratic primary to face U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the Associated Press projected.
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Mullock, 40, defeated Bayly Winder, the best-funded candidate with experience in the federal government, civil rights attorney and former nominee Tim Alexander, and grassroots candidate Terri Reese to become the Democratic nominee for the 2nd Congressional district.
“We will fight for South Jersey,” he said to a crowd of supporters Tuesday night at Cape May’s Chalfonte Hotel, which his family owns. “What happens next is bigger than one candidate, bigger than one election. This is about whether South Jersey will finally have the representation that it deserves.”
When he took the stage around 9:45 p.m., Mullock joked he had had a concession speech written.
“Give it to Van Drew!” a supporter shouted.
The Jersey Shore mayor raised nearly $200,000 and loaned his campaign $110,000, leaving him with the second-highest amount money in his coffers — though Winder still had more than double that along with a super PAC supporting him — as of May 13.
The sprawling South Jersey district includes parts of the Philadelphia suburbs andcoversfarmland, shore towns, and Atlantic City casinos. Van Drewwas first elected to the seat in 2018 as a Democrat, butbecame a Republican one year later and declared loyalty to President Donald Trump.
“For the last eight years, I’ve been working across the aisle to accomplish things, and, frankly, speaking the language of people that we’re going to need to talk to to win this election,” Mullock said in an interview last month, referring to his time on the local city council and as mayor in the nonpartisan local government.
Quanette Vasser-McNeal, the head of the Cape May County NAACP who attended Mullock’s election night party, said his local experience would give him the tools to compete with Van Drew in November.
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“How does he beat Van Drew?” Vasser-McNeal continued. “By actually being authentic to who he is, being consistent. He’s already the mayor of Cape May and being a true people person and for the community.”
Mullock dominated the polls in his home Cape May County and its bordering counties, Atlantic and Cumberland. His victory suggests his deep ties to the district were more powerful than Winder’s deep campaign coffers.
Joseph Viso, 21, the president of Stockton University Democrats, supported Winder and was surprised by the results, but conceded that the race came down to who had more roots in the district. Winder had just moved to South Jersey shortly before launching his campaign last year.
“It became a big question towards the end, of whose roots are truly invested in South Jersey,” said Viso, the grandson of former U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, a Republican who represented the district from 1995 until Van Drew replaced him in 2019.
Around the same time, the Trump administration was pushing for the removal of a slavery exhibit at the President’s House across the river in Philadelphia. Mullock said Van Drew’s silence was that final push he needed.
“To think that by the decree of one man, they would take down the history of slavery, and our representative just stood silent, and that just bothered the heck out of me,” he said.
But the soft-spoken Mullock said after his primary victory that he would best Van Drew “not with anger but with “neighbors talking to neighbors.”
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Staff writers Al Lubrano and Dana Munro contributed reporting.