Is this Tom Kean Jr.’s last stand? The nation — and Trump — are watching.

Inside a red-hot N.J. race with major Congressional implications

By: By Brianna Kudisch and Brent Johnson | NJ.com

The television advertisement is soft and gauzy, like a commercial for a skincare brand.

Natural light shines upon smiling father and son — former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean Sr. and U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. Both are dressed in baby blue button-downs and khakis in the ad, which kicked off Kean’s media buy in his closely watched re-election campaign in early September. They’re gathered on an outdoor porch in a dynastic moment clearly meant to evoke affection and nostalgia.

“I couldn’t be prouder of my son Tom,” intones the beloved former governor, whose most recent approval rating was 86%, despite leaving office 36 years ago. “He cares about people.”

But now, less than two weeks before Election Day, his son is in trouble.

Big trouble.

In a fight for his political survival, Kean, 58, faces Democrat Rebecca Bennett, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot (sound familiar?) in Jersey’s always-up-for-grabs 7th Congressional District. It’s a seat both national parties want dearly as they frantically fight for control of Congress at President Donald Trump’s midterm.

It’s no secret the second-term congressman that Democrats love to hate and some fellow Republicans can’t bring themselves to love has had a rough year.

For starters, he abruptly disappeared from Congress in March.

His staff refused to disclose much information, saying only that Kean was dealing with a personal medical issue. With no other clues, and, notably, no sightings, rumors and national headlines furiously swirled around him for months until he resurfaced in June, explaining he had been hospitalized with depression.

Add in the unstable political ground all Republicans are teetering on, thanks to an unpopular war in Iran and sky-high prices fueled by Trump — along with the president’s actions on significant local issues — and Kean’s chance of keeping his seat are slimming, political experts say.

National Republicans seem to think so, too. Three weeks before Election Day,they took a big chunk of money from Kean’s race and redistributed it to other congressional districts — a warning sign that the incumbent is now firmly an underdog.

While both sides say there’s plenty of cash being thrown around in the expensive race, it’s still a bad sign for Kean in the home stretch. So is the fact that Democrats are massively outpacing Republicans in mail-in voting so far.

In a rare phone interview last month, Kean said he’s fully recovered — and can beat the odds with his focus on serving his constituents.

“I am seeking their vote because people need an effective leader who knows how to get things done, who has a type of experience and temperament, is willing to reach across the aisle to find the solution, who’s willing to stand up to their own party in ways that Rebecca Bennett never will,” he told NJ.com. “That’s what this district needs, and that’s the type of legislator I’ve been.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are practically salivating at the chance to take back the seat, gunning for him like never before. Republicans are keenly aware of this.

“We consider this a top three race, not just a top 10,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told a room full of fellow Republicans at a private event in the district in late August, according to a Fox News reporter. “That’s how important it is to us. It has a target on its back.”

Johnson isn’t the only national politician to swing by the Garden State to campaign.

The other top leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, arrived in the state to boost Bennett. Other high-profile Democrats who have ventured to New Jersey includeformer Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords and former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Although it tilts Republican, the 7th is a purple stretch encompassing both staunchly conservative towns in Hunterdon County and cities in Union County that bleed blue. It’s been represented by both parties but has been held by Kean for the last four years.

“This is a pretty big deal,” said Ashley Koning, the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, said of the race. “And it’s not just for New Jersey.”

She noted that the district “has always been in the hot seat. It’s really never seemed to have been a safe seat for him, and it’s gotten increasingly more difficult for him to hold.”

‘Your enemies hate you … your supporters don’t love you’

It’s easy to see why Democrats loathe Kean. Though he has taken bipartisan, moderate stances on issues such as the environment and the SALT tax deduction, he has often voted with Trump. And he occupies a swing seat Democrats held just a few years ago and desperately want back.

Some Republicans, meanwhile, are privately lukewarm on the congressman, saying he’s too cautious and far from charismatic.

“That’s a tough spot to be — your enemies hate you, but your supporters don’t love you,” one Republican operative sympathized.

A second GOP insider called Kean a “good, solid congressman” who “does good things for his district.”

“His district is better off with him in office,” the person said. “But he is not lighting the world on fire.”

The race now leans Democratic, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which considered it a “toss-up” earlier this year. A StimSight Research poll conducted in mid-September showed Bennett with a five-point lead.

While they won’t say it’s a lost cause, some members of his party quietly wonder if Kean is up to the task of winning.

“Does he even have it in him?” another Republican strategist asked, questioning if Kean has the “campaign mode” for the increasingly grueling district. “As a Republican, it’s hard to watch.”

And while Kean’s familiarity with voters might carry him in other years, Trump — whose Bedminster golf course is in the district — has made things worse for him on issues closer to home. That includes freezing funding of the Gateway Tunnel project and proposing an ICE facility in Roxbury that local Republicans oppose.

Which is probably why Kean’s campaign called in for reinforcements — namely, his enormously popular father.

“His team approached me and said, ‘if we did it with you, would you be all right with that?’” Kean Sr. told NJ.com. “And I said, ‘if it helps Tom, I’m alright with it.’”

The former governor has a different view than the critics, marveling at the loyalty of his son’s staff.

“The people who work with him love him,” Kean Sr. said. “They really do. And they don’t want anybody else.”

In the family business

Kean Jr., a former state Senate Republican leader, has been in political office for decades. He served in the state Legislature for 20 years before moving up to the House by flipping the 7th District red in 2022, ousting incumbent Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski. Kean also ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006, failing to unseat Democrat Robert Menendez in a state that still hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.

Kean comes from a storied line of Jersey politicians. His father served as governor from 1982 to 1990. His grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-uncle all served in Congress. Kean is even a relative of William Livingston, the state’s first governor.

But it wasn’t always assumed Kean would enter the family business.

His father was surprised that Kean, a graduate assistant at Tufts University, left teaching behind to jump into the political sphere.

“I thought he was more of a scholar,” Kean Sr., himself a former teacher, told NJ.com.

His father dismissed talk that the family connections make Kean a ”nepo baby.“

“To his credit, he has never really asked me for anything,” Kean Sr. said. “He’s really gone out and done it on his own.”

In 2024, Kean clinched a second term against Sue Altman, a longtime progressive organizer, winning the competitive race by 5 points. Altman was easy to paint as a hardened progressive, unfit for the more moderate district.

Now in this year’s high-stakes election, Kean is facingBennett, 39 — a decidedly different opponent. First off, she’s a former Republican who switched her affiliation in reaction to Trump.

Now she’s a moderate Democrat in the vein of Gov. Mikie Sherrill. Like Sherrill, she’s a fellow former Navy helicopter pilot. And she’s emulating Sherrill’s more measured campaign strategy in attacking Trump and emphasizing affordability in an effort to court undecided voters and moderate Republicans.

“My life is the story of the American Dream. Because I was able to go to college on an ROTC scholarship and I worked two jobs on top of that to pay the bills,” Bennett said at her recent event with Jeffries at a church in Linden.

“This Trump administration is trying to destroy democracy. They are enriching themselves and they are making our problems worse. Tom Kean has been lockstep with the national Republican Party every step of the way.”

Malinowski, the Democrat who previously held the seat, called Bennett an “extremely strong candidate” but said she should take nothing for granted because of the complexities of the district.

“I do think that Rebecca’s in a good position to win, but it’s not going to be easy because of the inherent partisan tilt,” Malinowski said, referring to Republican towns that were added during redistricting at the beginning of the decade.

A mysterious absence

Kean voted on March 5 in D.C. and then, well, vanished.

At first, his absence was inconspicuous. But within a few weeks, it became glaringly obvious something was amiss. In April, his spokesman told reporters Kean was dealing with a “personal health matter” — without disclosing the specific cause — and he’d be back “soon.”

But as the weeks dragged on, Kean stayed absent, even amid his uncontested primary race.

“There’s no cameras where Tom is,” his chief of staff mysteriously told The New York Times.

On June 30, Kean returned. In a five-minute address on the U.S. House floor, he explained his four-month absence but refused to answer reporters’ questions while entering or exiting the chamber.

The congressman told NJ.com he didn’t even know he was depressed until he checked into the hospital.

Kean said he originally believed it was only going to be for two weeks. But as it stretched into several weeks, his staff updated both the press and constituents, he said. And he remained in the same place.

“I was hospitalized that entire time,” he said.

Kean defended how he approached his absence, calling his short speech on the House floor disclosing his depression the “appropriate way to handle” it.

“I was very crystal clear with my constituents that it was a medical circumstance,” Kean said. “But when I talk to people, they understand that it was important for me to come onto the House floor, tell people what happened to get rid of the stigma associated with it.

“I’m stronger than ever,” he added.

His father said the time away was “very, very tough” for the congressman. “It’s a tough disease, you know, and I didn’t know as much as I should have about it, honestly, until it hit the family,” Kean Sr. said.

For her part, Bennett, has largely steered clear of criticizing Kean’s absence, but has instead attacked Kean’s support of Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war.

“I’m glad that he got access to the care that he needs,” Bennett told NJ.com. “I continue to wish him a speedy recovery.

“And also, his voting record is terrible and he is absolutely failing this district,” she added.

Even in the best of times, Kean frequently shied from the spotlight.

The congressman, a notoriously shaky rocky speaker, has been accused of dodging the press and his constituents before.

In 2023, Kean escaped into an elevator to avoid telling a Politico reporter whether or not he supported an impeachment inquiry into then-President Joe Biden.

The next year, he did it again with a different issue. Video of Kean refusing to answer several questions from an NJ Spotlight reporter in an elevator in the U.S. Capitol went viral.

A few months ago, someone called the police on a New York Times reporter who attempted to speak with him at the fundraiser Johnson attended.

Kean vehemently denies he avoids reporters.

“The press is an important part of our democracy and needs to be respected,” he said.

His supporters dismiss the criticism of his absence as insider baseball spun up by the media.

“They’re missing the big picture, which are, you know, important issues to the district,” said Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member and Kean’s campaign attorney. “And not all those issues work in Tom’s favor, but many of them do.”

The longtime strategist ticked off the reasons he’s confident in Kean’s ability to win — the district tilts Republican, Kean and his team knows it well, and their congressman’s 117-day absence “is a distant memory.”

The Trump factor

Much like death and taxes, everything seems to ride on a singular figure once again: Trump.

Republicans acknowledge the president isn’t exactly basking in praise at the moment. Among New Jersey residents, Trump’s approval rating was 26%, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll in early October.

“Everywhere’s a tough place to be a Republican,” said state Sen. Jon Bramnick, who took over Kean’s former seat when the lawmaker left for Congress. “It’s not an easy path. I live in reality.”

Nowhere is that more clear than in the 7th, especially after national Republicans withdrew funding from Kean’s race in hopes of spending it in other districts.

But Democrats are also moving money they planned to spend on Bennett to other races, one Democratic operative said.

“Because she’s gonna win,” the person said.

Kean’s campaign said it isn’t worried.

“Republicans have massively outspent Bennett to this point and we are fully funded down the homestretch,” adviser Harrison Neely said.

Nor did Bennett’s side celebrate.

“Here’s what we know: Trump and National Republicans just placed a half-million dollar buy for Kean Jr. yesterday because they know he’ll be a rubber stamp for their reckless wars and higher prices,” Carly Jones, a Bennett spokeswoman, said following the news. “Rebecca’s ready to run through the tape to earn every last vote.”

During the candidates’ sole debate, Kean notably stood by Trump on both the tariffs and the war.

Asked by NJ.com to give the president a letter grade, Kean declined. “I think it’s too early,” he said. “I usually don’t give letter grades after the terms. But I would say that he inherited a disastrous state of affairs.”

One Democratic operative argues Kean has no choice.

“Trump infused $3 million into his campaign,” the person said. “What’s he gonna do? He’s just gonna be like, ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’”

But two critical local issues hit home for residents in the 7th, placing Kean in a far trickier position.

The Trump administration has long aimed to convert a warehouse in Roxbury — a reliably conservative township that has long supported Kean — into an immigrant detention facility. Local Republicans were beyond peeved at the controversial plan. The all-Republican town council joined the state in suing Trump’s administration to block the facility on environmental grounds.

Kean, who previously offered a somewhat tepid opposition to the plan, stated his strong objection to it during the debate.

And in his opening remarks, he came out swinging for the $16 billion Gateway project, which the president’s administration has repeatedly challenged through legal avenues. Funding for Gateway is a huge issue in the commuter-heavy district.

Above all of this is how much affordability has become an issue. The race is likely going to come down to Trump’s approval ratings, according to political insiders and experts. Historically, the party opposite the president does well in the midterms.

Sherrill’s landslide 14-point win last year was largely seen as a blazing repudiation of Trump in New Jersey. Sherrill also carried the 7th District in the race.

“The Democrats smell blood in the water and think they’re gonna win,” one Democratic operative said.

As with every race in American politics, both candidates are getting personal.

Bennett has repeatedly attacked Kean on his finances, claiming he continued to trade individual stocks while he was absent.

Kean has not formally placed his stocks in an official blind trust but insists he has no role in their trades. He’s repeatedly pushed back on her claim.

“I have not traded a single stock or directed a single stock trade since I became a member of Congress,” he said. “In fact, I created a blind structure in which I have no input at all.

“So she knows she’s lying,” added Kean, who ironically won his seat in part by attacking Democrat Malinowski over stock trades.

Meanwhile, Kean has hit Bennett over her record as a former healthcare executive. He released a television spot accusing her of making millions while the companies she worked for were implicated in patient abuse, neglect and deaths.

“Bennett became a millionaire while patients were maimed, sexually abused, and even killed because Rebecca Bennett is no middle-class moderate,” a man ominously narrates in the ad. “She’s a greedy liberal millionaire who doesn’t care about you.”

In response, Jones, the Bennett spokeswoman, redirected the focus back to Kean’s vote supporting Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which she said will “jack up health care premiums and kick tens of thousands of New Jerseyans off of their healthcare coverage.”

“There is only one candidate in this race who is focused on lowering healthcare costs, and that’s Rebecca Bennett,” she said.

Kean’s team also charges that despite her moderate message, Bennett will vote in lockstep with more far-left national Democrats, often bringing up a comment she made about no longer attending a church with Trump supporters filling its pews.

“This idea of saying I can’t work with people is ridiculous,” she said. “I have spent my entire life serving this nation.”

During the candidates’ debate, Bennett notably refused to provide her own net worth when asked about it, and refused again more than a week later in an interview with NorthJersey.com. Bennett’s husband, who is also a Navy veteran, works as a program manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Kean told the moderators he’s worth $10 million.

Bennett also has strategically not emphasized more hot-button issues, such as the war in Gaza.

“I don’t think she has expressed herself on issues related to various wings of the Democratic Party,” said former Rep. Leonard Lance, a Republican who previously represented the district.

In the campaign’s stretch run, Kean has stuck to the county fair circuit and other local stops.

Bennett has appeared with national Democrats, following a late-campaign strategy employed by Sherrill and former Gov. Phil Murphy. A recent rally with Buttigieg and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin drew 1,000 people at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg.

Those Dems brought up Trump. Of course.

Mike DuHaime, a Republican political strategist who helped run campaigns for former Gov. Chris Christie, said even though it leans Republican, the recent StimSight poll showed Trump’s numbers “are upside down” in the 7th district (58% disapprove of the president there).

Kean has a history of electoral success in areas of the district that are traditionally difficult for Republicans, the operative said, creating a path to victory. But, DuHaime added, the recent withdrawal of money from top Republicans is a foreboding sign.

“He needs national firepower to help offset the terrible political climate,” said DuHaime, a Kean family friend.

And through his optimism, former Gov. Kean, a political pragmatist, knows his son has a huge hill to climb.

“You’ve got a president who is unpopular and so Tom has got to run ahead of the president and people have got to split their tickets,” Kean Sr. said. “That’s tough.”

“He’s got a lot of friends in the district, but we’ll see,” he added. “I think people have got to be intelligent enough and caring enough to single him out on the ballot.”