Former Navy pilot Rebecca Bennett flipped Central New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, defeating two-term Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in the state’s most competitive House race, the New Jersey Globe projected.
At 9:10 PM, Bennett led Kean (R-Westfield), by nearly 33,000 votes, with 35% counted.
She outraised Kean through Oct. 14, $8.1 million to $6.1 million, and entered the final three weeks of the campaign with more than $1 million to spend, compared with $1.3 million for the incumbent. The House Democratic super PAC spent $3.1 million to help Bennett while its Republican counterpart spent $2.1 million in support of Kean, according to the research group OpenSecrets.
Kean, the son of former Gov. Tom Kean, was absent from Washington for more than three months and missed more than 140 r0ll call votes due to what he originally said was an unspecified medical issue. He later said he had been hospitalized for depression. But his absence without a full explanation until the end — as compared to U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) who was treated for the same illness — became a campaign issue.
In addition, in a midterm election seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump, Kean loyally supported the White House on major issues, including the giant tax and spending law that only partially and temporarily restored the federal deduction for state and local taxes that the GOP gutted during Trump’s first term over the objection of almost every House Republican in New Jersey. Kean also opposed efforts to require congressional approval of Trump’s war with Iran, supported legislation that independent studies showed would make it harder to register and vote, and, with Republicans needing almost every member to vote the party line to pass legislation, was a reliable ally of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana).
Bennett, meanwhile, had a biography similar to Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who flipped the 11th District in 2018. She won a competitive Democratic primary and benefitted from $1 million in spending by VoteVets, a PAC that backs military veterans running for Congress as Democrats. She was considered a more moderate Democrat in the mold of Sherrill.
She also hammered Kean on his numerous stock trades, including during the time he was hospitalized, the same issue that helped him defeat Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski in 2022. Like Malinowski, who eventually put his holdings in a blind trust, Kean said all of investments were managed by independent financial professionals who made decisions without his input, prior knowledge, or direction.
