NJ Democrats make election eve plea for voters to help them flip Congress

SPRINGFIELD — With control of Congress at stake, New Jersey’s top Democrats gathered Monday for an election eve rally, painting Republicans as a corrupt party beholden to billionaires that has lost touch with regular people and deserves to be swept from office on Election Day.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, and others rallied in two-term Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s district, hoping their get-out-the-vote pleas will help deliver a victory Tuesday for his Democratic challenger, Rebecca Bennett.

Kim told supporters packed into the Raymond Chisholm Community Center that he agreed with Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat who described himself as “nauseously optimistic” as Election Day approached.

“We’re hopeful. We’re hopeful, but it’s nerve-wracking, right? Because we know that so much is at stake. So much is at stake,” Kim said. “Right now we do not have three functioning branches of government. We have one branch of government that’s just trying to dominate the other two branches. That’s not the Constitution. That’s not America. That’s not our democracy.”

Kim and his fellow Democrats bashed President Donald Trump and his MAGA faithful, with Sherrill and Bennett referencing the $2 billion Trump has gained since his second White House term began.

“Has anybody else gained $2 billion in net worth in the last two years? Yeah, I don’t think so,” Bennett said. “And we have career politicians like Congressman Tom Kean Jr. who have been in office for 25 years, who are doing absolutely nothing to solve the issues that we are facing in this country. That’s ultimately, I think, part of the problem, is that we have a bunch of career politicians in Washington who are putting their personal interests over the needs of all of us.”

Harrison Neeley, a Kean spokesman, did not respond to a request for comment.

Sherrill told the crowd that when America has bad government, working people suffer.

“Everything is on the ballot tomorrow. If you care about working people having a shot in this country, if you care about getting costs down, if you care about protecting people’s rights, if you care about a future for our kids that we can be proud of, every single thing is on the ballot,” Sherrill said.

Speaking in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Trump accused Democrats of being committed “to the same radical agenda.”

“The Democrats want to blow all of this up by electing communist jihadists, and the United States Congress will not allow that to happen. Got some big races tomorrow. I guess some of the voting has already gone on, but tomorrow is Election Day, more traditional, and we can’t let that happen,” he said.

In Springfield, Bennett displayed the American flag patch she wore on her flight uniform for the decade when she served as a Navy helicopter pilot. It always reminded her she served the United States of America, not any specific president or party, she said.

“I brought this patch with me tonight because I want to remind everyone in this room that this flag does not belong to a political party. It does not belong to Donald Trump. It belongs to all of us,” she said.

Earlier, Bennett told reporters she’s confident but “definitely not measuring the drapes before tomorrow night. We got to make sure we’re sprinting through the finish line.”

Kim urged the crowd to help get her there.

“I see a lot of cowardice,” Kim said. “When I see Speaker Johnson just continuing to allow Donald Trump to do whatever he wants, here’s what I’ll say: On Tuesday, we got to rack up the votes so high for Rebecca and these candidates around the country, I want to make sure none of us have ever had to say after Tuesday the phrase ‘Speaker Johnson’ ever again. Never again!”