With just under two weeks to go until Election Day, Democratic congressional candidate Sue Altman is teaming up with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to air a new TV ad hitting Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) for not holding in-person town halls.
“Tom Kean has chosen to stand with the most extreme elements of his party,” Altman says in the ad. “He doesn’t hold town halls – he hides! I’m Sue Altman and I approve this message because I’m committed to holding both parties accountable, and I am committed to putting New Jersey first.”
The ad is being paid for by both Altman and the DCCC, which as a party committee is allowed to transfer relatively small amounts of money to its allied candidates for joint ad expenditures. The DCCC is putting down a little less than $100,000 on the ad, while Altman’s campaign declined to say how much it’s spending.
The buy is separate from an ongoing $4 million investment from the House Majority PAC, another Democratic-aligned super PAC, on Altman’s behalf.
Altman has repeatedly knocked Kean, who first won the competitive 7th congressional district in 2022, for his lack of town halls where constituents can speak with him in-person. Over the last month, Altman herself has held a series of town halls in each of the 7th district’s six counties, barnstorming from Rahway to Sussex County.
Kean, however, has said that his constituents prefer alternatives like telephone town halls and meetings at senior centers and veterans homes, all of which he has held as a congressman.
“The most important thing that I can do in this job is to listen to my constituents, to listen to their needs, to their concerns and do it in a way that makes it the easiest that I can for my constituents to interact with me,” Kean told the New Jersey Monitor earlier this month. “This is the best way to do so.”