Pollsters who were shocked two years ago by President Donald Trump's victory had a much better night with their predictions on Tuesday. But, they blew one local contest, big time, although they picked the winner correctly.
The U.S. House race in New Jersey's Second District between Democrat Jeff Van Drew and Republican Seth Grossman wasn't supposed to be a squeaker. But it was, long enough on Election Night to make the heavily favored Van Drew and his backers ready to wolf down antacids by the bottle.
In the end, Van Drew, a popular state senator, notched a respectable 52 percent to 46 percent victory, besting the baggage-laden Grossman by about 14,000 votes.
A final Stockton University pre-election poll put Van Drew ahead by 17 points, down from an earlier 23-point lead, but not close to the 5.8 percent win that Van Drew actually scored. So lopsided was this race supposed to be that many other polling organizations didn't bother with it.
The small margin is important both for what it says about the district, and what it means for how the congressman-elect will have to conduct himself in the two years until the next congressional election in 2020.
First, the assumption that this district was ready-made for Van Drew, a moderate/conservative Democrat who followed a moderate Republican (Frank LoBiondo, who is retiring) could be inoperative. Frankly, it's disconcerting that so many of our friends and neighbors would hear the divisive rhetoric of Grossman and still mark their ballots for him.
The national Republican Party dropped its support of Grossman when a tape of an interview in which he remarked that "diversity is a bunch of crap and Un-American" surfaced. More recently, after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, Grossman stated on Twitter that American Jews need to arm themselves "instead of becoming a burden on taxpayers & law enforcement by demanding special protection ..."
The best possible spin on Grossman's near success is that many voters wanted to show strongly their support of President Donald Trump through this Trump-backing surrogate, regardless of the objectionable things that Grossman has said. For the record, Van Drew has been less critical of the president than most Democrats. A dentist by trade, he based his House campaign more on health care issues than anything else.
Grossman actually defeated Van Drew in Salem and Ocean county parts of the district, as well as in the small portions of Camden and Burlington county that are included. And, Van Drew won fairly narrowly in his home county of Cape May, and in Gloucester County, usually a Democratic stronghold.
The point is, Van Drew can't regard this squeaker as an aberration. Once he's sworn in as a freshman in Washington, the former National Rifle Association darling who recently moderated his pro-gun positions will have to think hard before voting for even minor gun-control legislation likely to come up in a Democratic-led House. It might even be tough for Van Drew to support measures to return some of the civil rights protections that have been de-clawed by the Trump White House.
As we offer him congratulations on his win, it's not for us to tell Van Drew what to do on every single vote in Congress. He should, however, remember that he did get the majority of his district's vote. One thing he definitely should not do is give too much weight to the dog-whistle signals and divisive aspects of his just-vanquished opponent's campaign.
Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com
Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.