South Jersey shocker: Four-term GOP U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew concedes to Democrat Zack Mullock

The blue wave has hit the Jersey Shore.

In a major upset, Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew has conceded to Democratic Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock in South Jersey’s 2nd Congressional district. Van Drew’s concession came even as The Associated Press was still reporting the race too close to call.

The victory for Mullock, 41, is a major win for Democrats in a right-leaning district where Van Drew, 73, has been elected four times even though he switched his party to Republican in 2019, a year after being elected as a Democrat.

“I am so humbled. I can’t believe this is happening,” Mullock said Tuesday, joined by his family and Gov. Mikie Sherrill who flew in on a helicopter to be present for the historic moment.

“It’s a wave election. It can happen,” Van Drew said in an interview after conceding.

He compared this year’s election cycle to the 1974 midterms, when Democrats racked up victories amid voter frustration with President Richard Nixon following the revelation of the Watergate scandal.

“What I said all along is I’ll be fine as long as it’s not a Watergate, and it kind of is a Watergate,” Van Drew said. “There’s no Watergate issue, but it’s kind of like a Watergate where it’s larger than life and just swept people along with it.”

Local Democrats saw the Jersey Shore mayor as their best bet to oust Van Drew but he was largely ignored by national players until the final stretch of the race. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added the district to its ”districts in play” list just last month but did not prioritize it among more competitive races across the country and region.

But Mullock’s victory indicates a blue tsunami even greater than the wave observers were expecting. U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D, N.J.) declared at a get-out-the-vote rally that Democrats can turn their TVs off if Mullock wins his race “because you know we will have taken back the House.”

Sen. Andy Kim, a Burlington County Democrat, also campaigned with Mullock, and in the final stretch of the race he was joined by DNC Chair Ken Martin, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), and Sherrill.

Van Drew has held elected positions in South Jersey for decades. He maintained support in the state even after switching his party from Democrat to Republican and vowing his “undying support” to President Donald Trump in 2019, one year after getting elected to the House. He defeated Amy Kennedy by almost 6 percentage points in 2020 and won reelection by nearly 19 percentage points in 2022 and nearly 17 points in 2024.

Galloway Township resident William Collier, 53, said he voted for Van Drew when he ran as a Democrat. The incumbent’s party change, Collier said, helped motivate him to vote for Mullock this year.

“Van Drew doesn’t do anything for Jersey,” said Collier, a hospice worker who was interviewed while leaving work in Atlantic City. “He doesn’t do anything. He let us down. He was a Democrat, then he switched over to be a Republican. I can’t vote for Van Drew.”

At Mullock’s results party, Karen Kurtz, 73, a resident of Cape May for 50 years, said Mullock’s victory was “amazing.”

“We’ve gone out and went house to house and promoted him, and we are just over the moon that he has won,” Kurtz said. “Everybody was ready for a change. ... It needed to happen.”

One local issue that may have helped Mullock was the development of a controversial data center in Vineland.

Irene Demaio, 68, said she can hear a constant hum from the data center in Vineland at her home on quiet mornings.

“Someone I spoke to today, her brother lives even closer and has hearing aids, has to take them out, and still wear earplugs because of the humming noise,” Demaio said from a polling site at a fire station less than two miles away from the massive data center.

Van Drew, whose district includes the center, has said he has no authority over the project. But Demaio said she doesn’t trust his word.

“I think the politicians that let it happen need to go. Point blank,” she said. “They need to be out of office. Van Drew, specifically.”

Dan Vandzura, 31, also had the data center front of mind on Tuesday – this year above other issues he would usually prioritize, he said.

“There’s a certain set of issues that I might usually be inclined to focus on,” he said. “That one, definitely, I’ll say has risen higher than others. … I never thought data center would be the thing that’s a big deal, but here we are.”

He declined to share who he was voting for.

Mullock said in an interview last month that voters across the state are most interested in knowing whether he will “be a decent human being.”

“I think it’s beautiful that people are willing to put aside some of their biggest issues for the greater good, but it also says how low the bar has gotten,” he told The Inquirer.

“They have zero faith in the system, and they just think what’s happening right now is just outright corruption, and they just want good people to go in and fight it,” he added.

Cape May is a nonpartisan government, and the South Jersey Democrat said he’s hired Republican city managers and has no problem working across the aisle. He’s touted local investments in his community and said he has kept taxes down.

With his family, Mullock helped create the Harriet Tubman Museum and the Cape May Point Arts and Science Center. His family also owns the Cape May National Golf Club, where he has worked as vice president.

He’s also a general contractor and serves on the Atlantic Cape Community College Board.

Born and raised in South Jersey, Mullock and his wife, Justine, have three children.

Mullock raised less than $1 million through Oct. 14 while Van Drew raised more than $2.4 million in the same time period. The Cape May mayor was also outspent in a four-way Democratic primary, which he won with nearly 40% of the vote.

Mullock criticized Van Drew over his support of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which made large cuts to Medicaid. He also admonished the lawmaker for voting against bills calling for an end to the Iran war.

“It’s been about fighting for the middle class for Social Security, for Medicare, for Medicaid and for affordable healthcare for all families,” Mullock said in his victory speech. “Yes, it’s about enbding the war in Iran. It’s been about ending the tariffs that are causing all of our prices to skyrocket.”

For some voters, national political concerns were top of mind.

Margate resident Andy Slobotkin, 67, who owns a place mat advertising company, said he didn’t know much about Mullock, but was voting for him because “I know that I’d like some change.”

“People are embracing a little bit of a change this election cycle,” said Slobotkin, a Democrat. “They need to send a message to the Republican Party that we were promised one thing and we got something else.”

Staff writer Sarah Nicell contributed to this article.