He’s not Van Drew, but Kurkowski says he has a shot in the 2nd District

Democratic congressional candidate David KurkowskiNational Democrats had pinned their hopes on recruiting state Sen. Jeff Van Drew to take out Republican incumbent Frank LoBiondo in the 2nd Congressional District. When Van Drew declined to run, Democrats settled on Cape May's only Democratic councilman as their candidate.  But the national party opted out of funding his campaign.

Despite the lack of support, Kurkowski insists that he's more than just a warm body.

With little name recognition, few upfront financial resources and a base in one of the less populated areas of New Jersey's geographically largest congressional district, Kurkowski is - for now at least - a long shot.

Kurkowski, who runs a market research company and is Cape May's only Democratic councilman, is a relative newcomer to the area. A Pennsylvania native, he bought a shore house in Cape May in 1997 and moved there permanently in 2002. He ran unsuccessfully for council in 2004 before winning a seat two years later.

Even though Kurkowski has only been involved in local politics for a short period, he's running full-time and has hired a team of consultants that have worked on the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. He won't say as much, but party insiders claim that he's set a fundraising goal of $1 million.

"Let's just say were getting significant support at this time and we'll be filing in two weeks," said Kurkowski, who does not plan to self-fund. "I think that people will be surprised at what we've raised."

LoBiondo has $1.4 million on hand - more than the other five members of the state's Republican delegation - and faces just one token primary challenger, Donna Ward. But Kurkowski said that LoBiondo has such a large war chest because he's never had to spend it.

Kurkowski describes himself as ideologically similar to Van Drew, who finds himself sometimes at odds with his own party, in part due to the heavily Republican make up of his legislative district.

"I would say that I'm socially fairly liberal, but that I'm fiscally conservative. I have these two careers as a small businessman, so I know what it means to run a business and watch every dollar and make sure you get a good return on the investment," said Kurkowski.

Kurkowski sees several issues that he thinks LoBiondo is vulnerable on: the Iraq war, energy costs and "waste and fiscal mismanagement," citing his former leadership of the committee that oversaw the Deepwater Program. That program, a coast guard effort to modernize its ships, went over budget by $7 billion and produced ships with design flaws.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had previously targeted the 2nd District, but sources inside the party have long said that without Van Drew in the race the organization wouldn't likely put any resources into a challenge to LoBiondo.

"You can't say that it's a lost cause, but you also have to be realistic about what it means to take on any incumbent," said Ingrid Reed, who grew up in Cumberland County and directs the Eagleton Institute's New Jersey project. "He really has a challenge in this race simply because it's very hard to get known in five months when you're running against an incumbent who has not only good name recognition, but is tied very closely to the communities of the district."

Still, Cumberland County Democratic Chairman Lou Magazzu, who took on LoBiondo in 1994 for the then-open seat, said that he expects Kurkowski to run the toughest fight against LoBiondo yet.

"I think that David Kurkowski will do better than any Democrat who came before him, including the feeble attempt that I made in 1994 as a no-name lawyer from Vineland," he said.

Magazzu also came up with a criticism often made of LoBiondo: that by running for reelection in 2006, he broke the pledge that he made in 1994 only to serve six terms. That year, he beat Democratic challenger Viola Thomas-Hughes by 27 points.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Julie Shutley said, if LoBiondo was able to defeat a Democrat so handily that year, he should have no trouble winning again.

"He was able to win last year in a horrible election cycle, and I think that this year he will definitely be able to win," she said. "In the time of economic uncertainty that we're in right now, LoBiondo has been working for his constituency to make sure they have better jobs and lower taxes. The Democratic congress's first vote was to make Nancy Pelosi speaker, but their second vote in was to make it easier to raise taxes, and I think that LoBiondo has been there every step of the way to make sure taxes are not raised."

LoBiondo campaign manager Kevin Tomafsky did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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