As U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill eyes fourth term, three Republicans hope to take her on

A trio of Republicans are vying next month for the GOP nomination to take on Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill in a North Jersey district that has not sent a Republican to Congress since former President Donald Trump won the White House in 2016.

Raafat Barsoom, Joseph Belnome, and John Sauers are each seeking the Republican nod in the 11th District to unseat Sherrill, a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who first won office in 2018 thanks to a wave of Democratic anger over Trump’s election.

“What I’m hoping is going to happen is Donald Trump is going to win in November, and he’s going to need us to maintain majority in the House and have representatives there that are going to have his back and hopefully get back the Senate,” Belnome said.

Belnome is the front-runner in the GOP race, both because he’s raising the most money and because he won support from the county Republican organizations in all three of the district’s counties, Essex, Morris, and Passaic.

Though a federal judge’s order bars the use of county-line ballots in this year’s Democratic primaries, the injunction does not extend to 19 Republican counties.

Belnome’s status as the Republican favorite is something even Sherrill’s campaign has acknowledged. An early April press release from her campaign attacked Belnome for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, protest that ended with the riot at the Capitol, calling him a Trumpist extremist and dubbing him “J6 Joe.”

“Respected Navy veteran Mikie Sherrill, or disgraced MAGA extremist Joe Belnome — that’s the choice this November,” said Sherrill spokesman Sean Higgins.

Belnome, who has not been charged in relation to the attack on Congress, said he was cleared of wrongdoing and attacked Sherrill for not condemning Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the 2020 death of George Floyd.

“I’ll tell you this: I don’t remember her condemning the actions of antifa and Black Lives Matter across from the White House from St. Paul’s church where they had to put Trump in a bunker underneath the White House,” he said.

Sherrill, at the time, condemned Trump for threatening to use the military to quell protests.

“The very notion of using our military to quell peaceful protests, a linchpin of our democracy, offends me,” she said at the time.

Sherrill has her own primary challenger, Democrat Mark De Lotto.

Sauers, who at 27 is the youngest candidate in the race, said he hopes to enact incentives for solar energy and electric vehicles to supplant zero-emission mandates in states like New Jersey. He said he favors a school system that would send public funds to private schools and allow children to attend public schools outside their home districts.

Barsoom presents his campaign as a quest against corruption, warning it is “destroying the core of this country.” He’s a physician who said he emigrated from Egypt to avoid religious persecution from the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I know very well what corruption can do to people and what corruption can do to the nation and to the people who live in the nation,” he said.

Barsoom, referring to police brutality protests, claimed Democrats sought to encourage lawlessness for political gain in the run-up to the 2020 presidential race.

“When you see a politician assemble thousands of people to burn down the streets in major cities and no one is held accountable, that’s (an) operation just to create social unrest before elections,” Barsoom said.

Through the first quarter of 2024, Belnome, who said he is already looking ahead to November’s general election, raised $40,115 — twice that of the $20,022 Barsoom reported, and all but $22 of that came from a personal loan Barsoom made to his campaign. Sauer reported raising $5,000.

The comparisons grow more dire for Barsoom and Sauers when eyes turn to cash-on-hand. Belnome has reported next to no spending and had $39,763 in his war chest at the end of the reporting period. Barsoom, meanwhile, had $5,467 while Sauers had just $1,320, though he said he’s seeking to minimize the gap.

“I don’t have concerns with the fundraising,” Sauers said. “Once people start getting to know who I am, it’s going to come easily, and just because you have all the money in the world doesn’t mean you can win every race.”

Sherrill, meanwhile, has more than $1.3 million banked, and the $487,723 she raised in the first quarter outpaced all of the Republican challengers’ fundraising more than 7-to-1.

Belnome said he hopes national attention could help him close the gap.

“Once we get past the primary and I am definitely the general nominee, I think that can start sending me off,” he said.

The primary is June 4.