Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), ramping up his congressional re-election campaign after his bid for governor failed to work out, has drawn a second Republican challenger in the 5th congressional district.
Sandy Gajapathy, a former sales associate from Paramus, announced this week that she will run against Gottheimer next year; Gajapathy briefly ran for the same seat in 2024, but garnered little support at the Bergen GOP convention and never filed to make the primary ballot.
“I deeply care about the future of our country,” Gajapathy told the New Jersey Globe. “This district is my home, it’s my family’s home, and that’s why I’m running.”
One other Republican, corporate consultant Sean Kirrane, has also launched a campaign for the 5th district. Gottheimer’s 2024 opponent, Mary Jo Guinchard, said in April that she would run against Gottheimer once again, but she withdrew from the race a few months later.
Gajapathy, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants and a lifelong Bergen County resident, said her campaign will focus on securing the border, stopping corruption, and cutting wasteful spending. And Gottheimer, she argued, has failed to stand up for the residents of the 5th district against Democratic leadership in Washington.
“He says one thing and he does the other,” Gajapathy said. “For example, with [the State and Local Tax deduction cap], he said he’s going to fight to restore SALT, but then he voted for budgets that kept the cap in place. And he also says he’s going to put New Jersey first, but most of the time he sides with Biden and Pelosi in regards to spending over tax relief.”
She also faulted the congressman for running for re-election to Congress last year only to announce a campaign for governor immediately afterwards: “I don’t think the voters that elected him like that he did that,” she said.
But it will be difficult for Gajapathy – or for any other Republican who enters the race against Gottheimer – to make the 5th district competitive next year.
In the 2024 presidential election, fueled by gains among Bergen County’s Asian and Hispanic voters, Donald Trump came within a few thousand votes of carrying the 5th district. Gottheimer, however, defeated Guinchard 55%-43%, and even after pouring millions of dollars into his gubernatorial campaign still has nearly $9 million left to spend on his re-election campaign; the Cook Political Report recently shifted the district into the “Solid Democrat” column.
