From The Bergen Record Editorial Board:

“If there were more people like Josh Gottheimer in Congress, more Americans would have a favorable view of the institution. Gottheimer, a freshman Democrat representing New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District, hit the ground running after ousting longtime Republican Scott Garrett in the 2016 election. And he has not stopped since.

From his earliest days in office, the energetic Gottheimer has been a consensus builder, working across the aisle with Republicans when it suited for the benefit of folks in the 5th district, and providing constituent services as if he were a 10-year incumbent.

His constituents in the 5th, which covers portions of Bergen, Passaic, Sussex and Warren counties, had been starved for a hands-on congressmen who would work on their behalf rather than charge around as an archconservative zealot. Garrett, in his time, voted against health care relief for first responders on 9/11.

Gottheimer has supported measures backed by President Donald Trump more than some Republicans. He drew grief from immigration advocates for supporting a Republican-backed spending bill that didn’t address the concerns of so-called “Dreamers.”

Gottheimer did disagree with the administration, however, on the Trump-backed tax cut, which hurt thousands of New Jersey taxpayers, and will hit hard in Bergen County in particular. Gottheimer says the legislation’s cap on so-called SALT deductions is a “double tax” on New Jersey and says the law was “paid for on our backs.”

Generally speaking, Gottheimer is a fiscal moderate to conservative, while being more progressive on social issues. He cares about the environment, and he cares about other basic day-to-day needs of local institutions in his district. He is currently a co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers caucus in the House of Representatives and is determined to “claw back” Jersey tax dollars from what he likes to call the “moocher” states.

Gottheimer’s challenger, Republican John McCann, is a fervent Trump acolyte with scary views on immigration who has offered a full-throated endorsement of the Republican tax cut plan.

We learned a lot about McCann during an ugly episode earlier in the campaign, after vulgarity and swastikas were spray-painted on a Gottheimer campaign sign at the home of a Sussex County couple. In a Facebook post, after properly denouncing the acts, McCann went on to partly blame Democratic Party leaders Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters for spreading hate.

This sort of demagoguery stands in sharp contrast to Gottheimer’s more centrist and moderate work ethic in the House.

The choice in the 5th is easy. One candidate will stir fear and back fully the Trump agenda; the other will seek bipartisan solutions to challenges facing this country and advocate for the whole of the 5th District.

The good people of the 5th deserve the latter. Josh Gottheimer deserves a second term.”