By James J. Devine
In a move so shameless it would make Boss Tweed blush, a shadowy campaign ad is urging Jewish Republicans to abandon their party—just for a day, just long enough to prop up Congressman Josh Gottheimer, the so-called “least not bad guy” in New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.
The ad, circulating like a bad rumor in a Jewish chat room, features a smooth-talking operative telling thousands of viewers to don the cloak of the enemy: “Register as a Democrat. Vote for this guy—his name is Josh Gottheimer. Then walk out and forget it.”
Forget it? Forget what? The brazen manipulation of democracy?
The insult to voters’ intelligence?
Or the fact that Gottheimer, a man who has built his career on corporate cash and Trump’s praise, is now begging Republicans to save him from his own party?
Gottheimer, the Bergen County congressman famously dubbed “Donald Trump’s favorite Democrat,” has spent years straddling the political fence—raking in Wall Street money, gutting regulations on crypto scams and pollution, all while posing as a moderate.
Now, in a six-way primary bloodbath, his allies are resorting to the oldest trick in the book: Voter fraud by any other name.
“The Hasidim have been doing this for years,” the ad’s narrator shrugs, as if electoral integrity were just another game of three-card monte.
But here’s the kicker: The Gottheimer campaign claims they had nothing to do with it.
Oh, really?
Then who did? Some rogue benefactor? A “concerned citizen” with a sudden passion for bipartisan sabotage?
Or perhaps one of the many corporate PACs that have kept Gottheimer’s coffers overflowing while he played footsie with Republicans in Washington?
Stack’s Hudson County Playbook
This isn’t even the first time New Jersey Democrats have tried to poach GOP votes in an intramural election.
Hudson County’s double dipping Maypr & Senator Brian Stack—a man who treats elections like a personal patronage mill sent letters begging Republicans to switch sides, vote for his handpicked lackeys, then scurry back to the GOP like nothing happened.
It’s enough to make you wonder: Do these people even believe in democracy? Or is it just a numbers game—a grift where the rules only matter when they’re losing?
The Mask Slips
The ad’s narrator, oozing faux-reassurance, tells Republicans to “face the facts”—that Democrats outnumber them, that the next governor will likely be a Democrat, and that this is their chance to at least pick “the least not, not, not bad guy.”
But here’s the real fact: If Gottheimer’s campaign is this desperate, this willing to game the system, what does that say about his chances?
What does it say about him?
New Jersey voters have until April 16 to change their registration. The question is: Will they sell out their party for a man who can’t even win without them?
Or will they tell Josh Gottheimer and his backroom schemers to go straight to hell?