Democrat Mikie Sherrill, once the disciplined, refuse-to-take-the-bait candidate for Congress, couldn't resist flashing some snark last week over the stalled, $13 billion Hudson River rail tunnel project.

Now a freshman congresswoman from Montclair, Sherrill targeted her ire toward U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao after a jaw-dropping Politico report detailing how Chao steered some $78 million in funding for projects favored by her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The report described how Chao even went as far as to install a special liaison in her office to help grease the skids for her husband's Kentucky allies. A "rigged" system, as Trump might call it.

“One can’t help but think: would we have already broken ground on Gateway if it were located in Kentucky, not New Jersey and New York?'' Sherrill said on Twitter.

The Politico report was a reminder that the D.C. "swamp" Donald Trump vowed to drain has simply become more fetid. But for Sherrill, among the swing-district moderates who rode the blue wave in last year's midterms, the report also provided a chance to steer the conversation away from impeachment talk now consuming the Democratic caucus.

It allowed Sherrill, whose Morris County-centric district still leans Republican, to focus on a bread-and-butter concern for constituents who are already forced to ride a delay-plagued rail system through a 110-year-old tunnel that will soon have to be taken off line for extensive repairs. Gateway would supplement that tunnel while the old one is being fixed.

But the longer the funding fight drags on, the more the prospect of chronic delays, disruptions and loss of productivity along the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston appear inevitable.

During last year's campaign, Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, vowed to make the long-delayed Gateway project a priority. “We don’t need a wall between the United States and Mexico, we need a tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan,'' she said at an NJTV debate last fall.

Feds cast doubt on Gateway rail tunnel funding plan

Even though he was born and groomed in the Northeast, and built his real estate empire in Manhattan and a once-gleaming casino empire in Atlantic City, Trump has spent his first two years placating his Republican base in the Midwest and the South, often at the expense of his native turf.

His signature federal tax cut, signed in December 2017, included a $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions, a move that pinched the pocketbooks of thousands of Northeast homeowners who pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation.

The Trump administration has explored drilling off the East Coast, a move roundly opposed by New Jersey and other Eastern states but that would bolster the fortunes of Big Oil companies in the South. And he's pandered to the small-government Republicans who have opposed spending on big infrastructure projects like the Gateway project.

Given that political fact of life, it's easy to see why Sherrill reached a boil over the Chao-McConnell pipeline of pork funding.

“It deepens the impression that rather than working on behalf of all Americans, this administration is making partisan decisions with respect to our tax dollars,'' she said. "This is yet another blow to the taxpayers of New Jersey, who already subsidize states like Kentucky — a state that gets nearly three times the return on their federal tax dollars as compared to New Jersey.”

WATCH:Why the Gateway Project so important to New Jersey

EDITORIAL:If only the Gateway project were in Kentucky

PHIL MURPHY:Secretary Elaine Chao won't pick up phone to talk Gateway

In theory, a restored tunnel — and replacing the Portal Bridge, a breakdown-prone swing bridge over the Hackensack River — would help boost the value of Manhattan real estate, including some owned by the Trump organization. But the president views the tunnel project mostly as a bargaining chip.

After Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., spurned his offer to fund the tunnel if Democrats agreed to back funding to build a wall along the Mexican border, Trump administration officials have effectively shelved the project.

Trump transportation officials have since ranked the tunnel near the bottom of 37 rated projects vying for federal mass transit grants, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

Meanwhile, less crucial projects that still haven't secured financing were rated higher. A light-rail project in the Durham, North Carolina, area was rated as eligible for federal funding even before all local financing was approved. The deal collapsed anyway, Bloomberg reported.

Indiana got a high rating for commuter-rail money while local bonds have yet to be issued. In Phoenix, a light-rail expansion is on track for federal funding even as foes push a ballot question to cut the project’s local tax revenue

In an interview, Sherrill lamented the "ticky-tack" political games by Trump officials that have "undercut" the vital Gateway project.

"I think what is fueling this is the complete ridiculousness. It makes zero sense not to be moving forward on the Gateway tunnel project. And that is on every single level,'' she said.

Yet Sherrill's Twitter outburst also underscored another hard-to-ignore forecast: There is little hope of getting the project put on the fast track while Trump remains in office. Sherrill and other delegation members say they are working hard lining up funding in the upcoming transportation and appropriations bills. They are working with Gov. Phil Murphy and the Legislature. And U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez has lobbied Chao for support.

And while many Democrats oppose negotiating with Trump while he stonewalls congressional investigations into his administration after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, Sherrill isn't one of them.

She supported House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to meet with the president in late April, which produced a promise to provide $2 trillion in transportation funding. A follow-up meeting collapsed after Trump said his support for transportation aid was contingent on Democrats' backing his new trade deal with Canada and Mexico.

"We can’t stop the business of the people simply because there are oversight responsibilities as well,'' Sherrill said. "I am a big fan of giving people an opportunity to do the right thing for our country."

Others are hopeful that Trump will seek a bipartisan deal on transportation projects to showcase as a success for the 2020 campaign. They also take the long view, noting that the Access to the Region's Core, a predecessor to Gateway, took 10 years of lobbying and approvals over several administrations before Republican Gov. Chris Christie canceled the project in 2011. It's the kind of political cat-herding that would take place with or without Trump at the helm.

"Certainly, it hasn't been futile. We could do it faster and cheaper with the president on board. We don't have him on board,'' said Steve Sandberg, a spokesman for Menendez.

Sherrill, too, remains optimistic despite Trump's resistance.

"I'd be happy to meet with the president,'' she said. "I'm happy to do every single thing I can to continue to push for issues that matter to people in my district. I am working with anyone possible ... to get shovels in the ground."

Sherrill says she wants to have all the "ducks in row" and ready for the project once the complex funding is secured. That may prove to be a long wait — and one that won't be over until Trump leaves office.