Jewish Candidate Who Called Diversity ‘Crap’ Down 23 Points In New Jersey Swing District

New Jersey GOP congressional candidate Seth Grossman. Image by facebook
A Republican Jewish candidate who said “diversity is a bunch of crap” is down big in his southern New Jersey House race, which is now set to elect a Democrat for the first time in 24 years, a recent poll shows.
Seth Grossman trails State Senator Jeff Van Drew by 23 points in a district centered around Atlantic City that went for President Trump by five points, the Stockton University survey released Sept. 19 shows. Grossman has tried to align himself with Trump, plastering the district with “Make America Great Again” signs.
The Republican winner, Seth Grossman, campaigned on a straight ahead Trump platform and plastered “Make America Great Again” signs all over the district. #nj02 #NJPrimary pic.twitter.com/TI8ncNGQgZ
— Amy S. Rosenberg (@amysrosenberg) June 6, 2018
But besides the Republican candidate’s divisive statements, the district has also soured on Trump, the poll shows.
Only 41% of the 535 likely voters surveyed said they thought the president was doing a good or excellent job, compared with 49% who graded him as doing poorly.
The race also shows a big enthusiasm gap between Democratic and Republican voters.
Nearly 90% of Democrats said they were backing Van Drew, compared with just 65% of Republicans backing Grossman.
The GOP pulled its support for him in July after it was revealed that he had shared articles from white nationalist websites on his Facebook page.
“Bigotry has no place in society—let alone the U.S. House of Representatives,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers said at the time.
Grossman defended his diversity statements to the Forward over the summer.
“I’ve looked at each comment I made, and I looked at the event that prompted each comment,” the candidate said. “I think that the comments I made were a fairly reasonable reaction to the event that had taken place.”
Contact Ben Fractenberg at [email protected] or on Twitter, @fractenberg
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
-
Fast Forward Yarden Bibas says ‘I am here because of Trump’ and pleads with him to stop the Gaza war
-
Fast Forward Trump’s plan to enlist Elon Musk began at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave
-
Film & TV In this Jewish family, everybody needs therapy — especially the therapists themselves
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.