With the arrival of the New Year, the 2024 election cycle has begun in earnest.

NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY Network New Jersey reached out to each of the state’s 12 members of the House of Representatives to find out what they’re focusing on and how they think the country is handling foreign policy and the economy.

We asked about the wars in Israel and Ukraine, as well as the tensions in the South China Sea. Here is a selection of what some of them said. Not every member of the New Jersey delegation participated.

How do you think the country should respond to the wars in Israel and Ukraine and the tensions in the South China Sea?

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5

“We've got to make sure to get resources to Ukraine and Taiwan, in addition to Israel. And I've been very focused on getting a package done of aid. I also think we need to make sure we stand strong against Iran, which continues to directly or through its proxies fire missiles at the United States of America, at our bases, as well as at our key ally Israel — and, of course, stay strong against China and Russia.”

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11

“We have got to get funds to support Ukraine. We also have to understand better how we are going to get the rest of the hostages released. We've seen far too many civilian casualties. I am hopeful we can get back to the humanitarian pause. I was really sorry to see that end. I thought it would last longer. That was when we saw the best results of the hostages released. And the families of the hostages have been advocating very strongly for that. And then dealing with the humanitarian crisis there, which we have funding for in the supplemental, and I think making sure that we are working hard to deter Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, and that is in the supplemental as well. But we have a lot to do. I think it is a complicated and difficult time.”

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-9

“To me, if we do not continue to fund our friends and allies in Ukraine and stop Russia from [its] expansion agenda — which Putin has laid out very nicely — if we don't do that, that would be worse for me than having Trump the president. We need to find allies so that we don't go into things by ourselves … One of the top things we're talking about is an agenda to defend the security of the United States, because if Russia succeeds in what it wants to do, then it's an invasion … and at the same time we're trying to deal with friends in Palestine and our friends in Israel. It's a tough situation. Israel has a right to defend itself. Has it gone too far? In my estimation, in some areas it has. Israel is our ally, and the Palestinian people should be our ally. I didn’t support the cease-fire in the beginning, because that was not the agenda of how to take down Hamas, but now Israel needs to begin to understand that there's a difference between Hamas and the Palestinians."

Rep. Robert Menendez Jr., D-8

“All these challenges dictate what the future of the global community looks like, and so the United States has to be directly engaged there. We have to meet the challenges head-on. We have to work with our NATO partners, especially with respect to Ukraine, to ensure that we hold tight together, because the challenges that we face now will be modest in comparison to what we will have to face if Russia is successful in Ukraine, if China expands its movement into neighboring territories. These challenges will only get more complicated if we don't meet the moment.”

Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6

"The problem is Republicans have been resisting a lot. Our foreign policy used to be bipartisan, and that's been broken by Republican resistance and what I would call Republican isolationism. You have a lot of Republicans now that still want to continue to provide weapons and equipment to Ukraine. And they keep putting on all kinds of restrictions or extra conditions on what the president wants to do. So right now, we have a supplemental appropriations bill that provides security assistance for Israel, for Ukraine, for Taiwan, humanitarian assistance across the globe … The Republicans have to get out of this mindset that they're going to condition foreign policy to a domestic agenda. We have to deliver this aid to Israel and Ukraine, and it shouldn't be conditioned on this extreme Republican domestic agenda, because otherwise our allies will not trust us and this aid doesn't get delivered.”

Rep. Andy Kim, D-3

“I think the biggest thing we can do is make sure we’re supporting our allies and building strong, lasting coalitions. It’s incumbent on us to recognize that our allies are in those regions and are being affected by these conflicts and tensions every single day, and as their allies we need to be supportive and understand those relationships so we can be additive. When it comes to the South China Sea, I think we need to be careful how we speak about how we view the situation. We need to push back on the narrative that conflict is inevitable and do everything we can to try and solve our disagreements through diplomacy and engagement.”

Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1

“Each of those conflicts are obviously somewhat unique. Let's start with Ukraine. Anyone that we talked to who has read anything or studied World War I or World War II understands the need to support our colleagues, our friends, our neighbors in Ukraine. The idea that we could somehow even fathom walking away from that would be one of the most shortsighted decisions ever made by this country. We tried to stay out of World War II. We saw what happened … Ukrainian aid is incredibly important, and we have to do that.

"The war in Israel needs to be eliminated. There is no question about that. There's obviously a lot of death and destruction, starting with what Hamas did back in October. Two days after that war started, I was in Israel, speaking to Benjamin Netanyahu about what happened ... Hamas is a terror group that needs to be eliminated, and then we look at Taiwan and what China's doing in the South China Sea. The idea of losing one of our closest allies in Taiwan by an attack on China is unacceptable. We don't have to forget about the other bad players: North Korea, although not on the front page today, is always there, and Iran, who is behind virtually every terrorist attack in the Middle East, continues to create disruption for us.”

Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ congressional delegation on Ukraine, Israel, South China Sea