quick summary

Joe Salerno

Candidate Salerno is a successful businessman with degrees in engineering and law. One of his main campaign messages seems to be a response to Congressman Van Drew appearing to be a sell-out to former President Trump and other politicians in Washington, instead of keeping the constituents of South Jersey as the top priority. Scrolling through his Facebook page shows many direct attack ads in that vein, and some videos floating around seem to further evidence that. Campaign Event Speech (more below on the page). He has a bunch of agenda items such as protecting reproductive rights, instituting tax credits to bring manufacturing back, protecting social security, and more. While it is understandable that left leaning people like Salerno might not like Van Drew's political alignments and voting record, Van Drew has decades of political experience, with about 5 years specific experience as a US Congressman, while Salerno apparently has no direct political experience. With that in mind, it is the opinion of InformTheVote that more discussion is necessary regarding how Salerno intends on implementing his agenda in a way that is significantly different or better than Van Drew, as opposed to simply attacking Van Drew. When we asked at Deerfield day about getting more into the nuances regarding his agenda, policy positions, and directly comparing that to Van Drew's agenda and policy positions, Salerno basically said (paraphrased): "I don't have a very specific agenda or policy positions. I was more inspired to run to help government become more unified and less divisive. Van Drew also seems to lack a moral compass." We also see a post about his opposition to Project 2025, a conservative agenda proposed by the Heritage Foundation think tank, which has been debated as to whether it has direct links or relevance to Trump, the GOP, and their platforms. To note, it is interesting to have been told he was inspired to run as a unifier, but also wants to 'add a brick to a blue wall'. Facebook post Click the red x at the top of this box and then scroll down down for more in-depth information and sources.