Mikie Sherrill and other women 'appalled' by Donald Trump make record run for Congress

They're more than just a midterm referendum on President Trump's first two years in office. This year's congressional elections have become charged by the #MeToo movement and Trump's bombastic tenure.

And now a record number of women are seeking seats in Congress. Some of them are inspired by Trump's presidency. But most say they are appalled by him and his right-leaning agenda, and want the power to stop it.

The "Stop Trump" trend was reflected in New Jersey's primary on Tuesday, when a total of six female candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives were on the ballot across the state, up from the three who ran for office in 2016.

The 2018 list included one incumbent, Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Mercer County Democrat who is running for her third term in the 12th Congressional District, and one Republican, Lindsay Brown, a Web designer from Clark, who ran against incumbent Leonard Lance in the 7th Congressional District in Central Jersey.

Yet for all the anti-Trump and #MeToo movement fury that has propelled more women to jump into the fray — and not waiting to be asked or recruited by party chieftains, which has traditionally been the case for past female candidates — only one newcomer is seen as having a genuine chance of winning.

Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor from Montclair, is the only one of the female candidates who enjoys front-runner status. Sherrill is running in the Morris County-centered 11th District, now held by Republican Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, who is retiring.

Another candidate who has garnered considerable media attention this primary is Tanzie Youngblood, 62, a retired teacher from Gloucester County. She was a long shot for the Democratic nomination in the 2nd Congressional District in South Jersey — another seat being vacated by a retiring Republican congressman, Frank LoBiondo, who has held the seat since 1995.

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The prospects of these two left-of-center candidates, eager to tap the Trump disgust and harvest the surge in Democratic registration in their districts, are largely determined by the deeply entrenched, organizational realities of New Jersey politics.

Sherrill is a front-runner, in large part, because of her résumé and her fundraising prowess — her raising of $2.8 million this spring stirred some buzz in statewide political circles.

She also won the blessing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in January, gaining extra organizational and fundraising help for her campaign. But more importantly, Sherrill locked up the endorsement of the Morris, Essex, Passaic and Sussex Democratic Party committees, the most valuable prize in any New Jersey Democratic primary.

Winning county endorsements means Sherrill will be bracketed, or on the "line," with preferred U.S. Senate and local candidates. Voters with little awareness of the race reflexively select the "line" candidate like a busy shopper who is more inclined to pick a product with the Good Housekeeping seal affixed to the wrapper. With some notable exceptions in the past, candidates who win the line usually win the primary.

It's an antiquated, Tammany Hall-style system where a small group of party regulars — and, in some cases the party chairman — can decide the fate of an election. But there has been little appetite to change it, given that Democratic lawmakers who run the state Legislature are largely beneficiaries of the system.

Sherrill, meanwhile, says it was Trump who motivated her to "serve" again. She was "appalled" by the Trump agenda and his "attacks on women, minorities, Gold Star families, POWs and the Constitution,'' she says.

"On top of that, we see that every piece of legislation coming out of Washington hit New Jersey and our district particularly hard,'' Sherrill said, referring to the Trump tax overhaul that hurt homeowners with its new curb on state and local tax deductions.

"So, quite frankly, this race doesn't feel as partisan as it feels like we have to stand up and fight hard for the economic future of middle-class families in New Jersey."

Youngblood touts a progressive platform that she believes is in sync with the grass roots in this sprawling district that stretches across the rural belly of South Jersey, from the banks of the Delaware River to Atlantic City. She advocates for a single-payer system of health care, supports a movement to impose tighter campaign finance restrictions, and opposes privatization of public education.

But unlike Sherrill, Youngblood saw the eight county committees in her district quickly anoint veteran state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, a socially conservative Democrat from Cape May County who holds a 100 percent rating from the National Rifle Association.

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Van Drew also has the backing of South Jersey Democratic leader George Norcross III, perhaps the state's most influential unelected Democrat, and the DCCC, which views a Democratic takeover of the 2nd District as crucial in the Democratic Party's bid to regain control of the House.

Youngblood, however, was positioning herself as the woman-against-machine outsider in this race.

She argues that the county leaders who she says turned a deaf ear to her requests for support are simply out of touch with a restive party base. They are disgusted by Trump, and she believes the Democratic rank-and-file will reject Van Drew, who is "masquerading as a Democrat,'' she says

"Women [voters] are going to be key. They are tired, and our voices need to be heard. It's important,'' Youngblood said, citing statistics that women are 51 percent of the population but represent less than 25 percent of Congress. "And I'm hoping millennials are coming out."

Youngblood and Sherrill are among a record 387 candidates for the House, up from the previous record of 309 set in 2012, according to analysis by The Associated Press in conjunction with statistics compiled by the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, a nonpartisan group that tracks women candidates for public office.

Deborah Walsh, the executive director of the center, says most newcomers are running as Democrats, generally shocked by Trump's victory, temperament and agenda.

"They are still running to fix something,'' she said in an interview. "And what they want to fix or preserve or protect are things like health care policy, reproductive health issues, environmental issues. So that is still being driven by policy. But what the shift this year is: that they aren’t waiting to be asked by somebody to run."