In a political move so upside down it might’ve been conceived in a casino bathroom stall scrawled with hedge fund talking points, Rep. Josh Gottheimer—the Wall Street house pet and self-declared Blue Dog Democrat—has unleashed a gubernatorial campaign ad that dares to cast himself as Donald Trump’s fiercest opponent.
You read that right. The man who spent Trump’s first term voting for his policies more than any other Democrat in Congress now expects us to believe he’s the tip of the spear against the orange autocrat’s next coming.
“Right Fights,” the name of the thirty-second abomination now airing across New Jersey airwaves, isn’t just misleading—it’s pure gaslight theater.
Who remembers when Democrats still fought like hell instead of fundraising like cowards?
Gottheimer stares into the camera like a wax figure come to life and pledges to fight everything from sky-high rent to Trump himself, as if we’ve all been lobotomized by property tax bills and won’t remember his actual record: pro-corporate, pro-Trump-lite, and pro-Wall Street to the marrow.
The same man who voted like a Republican, fundraised like a Koch Brother, and governed like a state trooper escorting Goldman Sachs through a working-class neighborhood, now postures as the savior of the people.
This is not just hypocrisy.
It’s insult stacked atop injury, delivered with the smug confidence of someone who knows the political establishment machine in Bergen County and groups like AIPAC are greased and ready to churn votes like sausage.
The ad, a seven-figure gift to the gods of gall, opens with a narrator declaring that while others “fight each other,” Josh is fighting for you.
A sweet sentiment from the same guy whose campaign bankroll reads like a Forbes gala RSVP list.
Fighting for you—unless “you” are a nurse, teacher, or tenant not earning stock options. “Fighting utility companies,” he says, while being funded by the financial firms underwriting those utilities.
“Lowering taxes,” he says, while floating a DOGE-like property tax reduction scheme so shell-game shady it’s been dubbed a “Soprano State version of trickle-down Reaganomics.”
He even falsely claimed West Orange homeowners pay more in property taxes than Manhattan’s Upper East Side—an outright lie that would make a used car dealer blush.
But facts don’t matter when the candidate wears the right color tie, speaks fluent donor, and has sufficient funds to drill the lies into voters’ brains.
Let’s be clear: Gottheimer is no problem solving Jersey guy.
He’s a Clinton-era ventriloquist dummy with the soul of a PAC and the instincts of a political weathervane duct-taped to a hedge fund algorithm. His most notable action in the current session of Congress was his $20 million in Microsoft stock trades.
This is a man who thinks courage means opposing Trump while adopting every one of his economic talking points—but delivered in a fleece vest from Paramus.
Meanwhile, conservative Blue Dog Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill grooms herself for coronation with the help of North Jersey’s backroom barons.
Former Senate President Steve Sweeney lingers like the ghost of Norcross past, and Sean Spiller, the scandalized ex-mayor of Montclair, skulks through the race hoping voters have short memories and fingers that don’t know how to use Google.
At the same time, real progressive contenders like Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop are out there talking about equity, infrastructure, climate, and public education.
Fulop’s Democrats for Change team is the only one that has recruited challengers to machine-backed incumbents who are typically allied with Sherrill and Sweeney, representing more of the same stale leadership.
But it’s Gottheimer’s Machiavellian masquerade that takes the cake—and eats it, too.
It’s not just that he’s running as the guy to fight Trump. It’s that he actually believes the voters are gullible enough to buy it.
It’s a breathtaking level of cynicism that makes the Hudson River look clean by comparison.
Take his unfounded assertion that Gottheimer will take on utility companies.
New Jersey residents are facing significant utility rate increases, particularly for electricity, with an average monthly increase of 17.23% to 20.20% starting June 1, 2025. You should be angry about that, but expect to be disappointed if you trust Gottheimer to fix it.
New Jersey’s Democratic primary is shaping up to be a battle between machine-stitched careerists, bloodless technocrats, and the last vestiges of progressive resistance in the state.
At the center of it, like a campaign finance golem made flesh, is Josh Gottheimer—bankrolled by billionaires, praised by Republicans, and now, somehow, the self-anointed Trump slayer.
If this is what passes for courage in the Democratic Party of 2025, then God help us all.
The con is out in the open. And if we’re too tired, too broke, or too numb to notice, the grifters win again.
New Jersey deserves better than a Wall Street Democrat in MAGA drag. But if the money’s right and the ads are loud enough, who the hell knows anymore.
Stay tuned. And stay mad.