This is the ninth in a series of in-person, in-depth New Jersey Globe interviews with New Jersey’s members of Congress (or, in this case, their opponents). The interviews will be published as-is, with editing for length and clarity.
An interview invitation was originally extended to Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), who has represented the 7th congressional district since 2023. Kean, however, declined to be interviewed, and thus the invitation was offered instead to his Democratic opponent, Sue Altman, who is running a competitive campaign to defeat him this November.
The Globe spoke with Altman, the former New Jersey state director of the Working Families Party and a first-time political candidate, about her background in progressive organizing, her views on abortion and Israel, her ideas for how Congress can regain the trust of the American people, and more.
Previous interviews: Rep. Andy Kim, Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Bill Pascrell, Rep. Rob Menendez, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, Rep. Josh Gottheimer
New Jersey Globe: You’ve been involved in politics for a while, but this is your first time seeking public office. What have you learned in the last year and a half? What’s been different than you expected about this process?
Sue Altman: I haven’t had time to process it all, but there’s an element to the old song, “I’ve seen love from all sides now” – I’ve seen politics from all sides now. This has been a journey for me, personally, that both reiterates the incredible importance of grassroots, but also the importance of large-tent coalitions. Part of my evolution, I think, has been to be able to communicate to a broad swath of people in this district; we have people who believe in institutions, we have people who want government to work. My aim, and I think the movement’s aim going forward, is to create as large of a coalition as possible to fight for democracy in this country. It may very well mean we have people under our umbrella that we don’t normally agree with.
The great example, of course, this week was Dick Cheney endorsing Kamala Harris. All of a sudden we have a tent that includes AOC and Dick Cheney, and to me that’s a very uniquely American and a very beautiful thing. We only have two parties; truth be told, our country is so big, we should probably have more, but that’s the system we have. And so the Democratic Party has to negotiate a broad swath of folks. I have some experience with this down in South Jersey, creating an anti-corruption coalition that included all types of folks, including Republicans. But what I’m trying to do in the 7th district is galvanize a coalition that wants to hold elected people accountable, finds Trump distasteful and problematic, and is frustrated that Tom Kean Jr. – despite by all accounts being a nice enough guy – lacks the political courage that this moment requires. Being a nice enough guy, and having a dad who was governor, doesn’t quite cut it anymore. It doesn’t quite cut it in this moment. I think focusing on how our Founding Fathers intended democracy to work, and what the House of Representatives is for, has been a really helpful way for me to express the idea of, “It’s okay if we don’t agree on every issue. It’s okay if there’s some difference there.” That’s democracy, and that’s the messiness of democracy.
You got your start in progressive organizing specifically; you were the state director for the Working Families Party, which is one of the leftier forces in New Jersey politics. Now you’re running for a swing district that has lots of moderate voters in it. How do you square those two things?
It actually hasn’t come up as a conflict at all, because most of my work at Working Families was around anti-corruption and pro-democracy [organizing]. The reason I’m “Jersey famous” is because I fought Democratic Party bosses. So that actually lends itself to great credibility across the aisle with moderate Republicans, and with independent voters who are sick of both parties. I actually see it as a strength.
And I agree with Working Families on a lot of issues, but we didn’t weigh in on a lot of stuff in New Jersey. We were a separate organization; we have a separate legal entity, a separate budget, I raised all our own money. So I didn’t have to do everything Working Families National was doing, and there are issues to this day that I have publicly and privately broken with them on. For instance, the issue of Israel: New Jersey Working Families Alliance doesn’t have an opinion on Israel. It didn’t when I was there, it wasn’t even on the radar; now everyone has an opinion on it. Since Working Families National now has a position on Israel, I’ve actually said I disagree with it, and that’s just one example.
But I’ve never been somebody who goes along to get along, or agrees by default, or doesn’t have my own brain attached to my head. I’ve had a great education, I’ve had a lot of privilege in my life, so when there’s difficult questions that come before me, I’m probably not just going to outsource my thinking to any organization – whether that’s an employer, whether that’s a party like the Democrats, whether that’s donors. I will use my own brain and my own experiences, combined with the feedback I’m getting from the district, to make decisions. Honestly, it hasn’t really come up, because I think people see me as an independent voice, and that holds true across the board.
Do you feel like you have changed your position or evolved on any issues in the time between when you were Working Families Party state director and now? Or do you think that you’re the same person throughout, and it’s just in different contexts?
I’m the same person throughout, for sure. I think I’ve made a couple of mistakes in the things I’ve said. Famously, I had a tweet in the dark days of 2020 – none of us were at our very best in November of 2020 – it was at the height of all the conflicts with the police, and I had a tweet in which I used the hashtag #DefundThePolice. I think it was unnecessary; I think it turned out to be a very harmful hashtag, not just for the movement in losing credibility, but also for the men and women in law enforcement who are actively trying to do a good job.
It reminds me of teachers, who get blamed for society’s ills. During the Christie era, people were like, ‘We’ve got to close schools, we’ve got to fire teachers because our test scores aren’t high enough.’ To say nothing of all the upstream problems that communities have and the issues they’re facing – that might actually be the reason test scores aren’t as high, nevermind that tests themselves are problematic. Policing’s similar: you’re kind of cleaning up the back end of all the hardest, most difficult parts of society.
And so I wish I hadn’t tweeted it, because I think it’s a misleading point of view. I look at a place like Rahway, which actually has done a tremendous job investing in law enforcement in really smart ways, with recruiting and training and really doing an unbelievable job involving community partners in law enforcement and in public safety more broadly. To me, that’s a really inspiring format. I think policing deserves respect, deserves investment, and the #DefundThePolice hashtag was misguided; I think it caused harm, and I will take ownership for that and I regret having done that.
That’s probably one very simple, clear way where I’ve evolved my point of view. But in all the cases, I think my values are consistent. Being able to talk to people and meet people where they are in conversations with real voters is an important challenge, and is exactly what a politician should be doing – not hiding from people the way my opponent does.
Shifting to what’s going in Washington, Congress famously almost never has a good approval rating. A FiveThirtyEight approval poll tracker for Congress has 63% of Americans disapproving of Congress, and just 21% approving. Do you think that’s a problem that could even remotely be fixed?
I think it is a problem that people have such low regard for Congress, but it’s super logical. I did a bunch of youth roundtables in the spring all over the district – young people under age 25, most were college-aged – and there was a real sense of frustration that, in their entire lives, they have never seen a functional Congress. I can barely cling to a memory from my early childhood of having seen a functional Congress –
The budget, I believe, has never been completed on time during my lifetime.
That’s insane! To say nothing of common-sense gun legislation, to say nothing of issues with the border. There was a bill to fix issues on the border that Republicans killed cynically so that they could continue to talk about it the way Donald Trump did last night [in the presidential debate].
Would you have supported that bill?
I didn’t love it, top to bottom, but I would have probably voted for it because it was at least a step forward. But I would like to see a path to citizenship for people who are already here, and I’m on the record being for that.
I feel like Congress hasn’t been functional in two decades, and so it makes sense to me that people think very low of Congress. Here in the 7th, you have a congressman who doesn’t bother to meet with constituents, who doesn’t bother to hold town halls generally, who dodges questions from the press, dodges meetings like these. There’s a real sense of disconnect between the average everyday person and their congressperson. So what is there to like about Congress, if those are the facts of the case? Congress has a long way to go to improve its image and actually get stuff done.
I never really wanted to be in Congress. It’s not like some long-held dream that I’ve had. I just felt like what was happening in Washington was such a triage moment that it was my duty to step up and do public service. I don’t blame people for disapproving of Congress, and when I get there, I will do my best – at least in the 7th – to make sure people feel comfortable with my representation of them, and hopefully that will go a small way towards making people feel better about Congress as an institution.
Do you think that term limits are part of what could make people have better feelings about how they’re represented in Congress?
Yeah, I really like term limits. I considered signing the term limit pledge – I thought it was a little too short. I think they had six years as the number, I thought that was a little too short. But I would like to see term limits. I certainly have no intention to serve in Congress to the day I die, and I don’t think that’s what the Founding Fathers intended with the House of Representatives. Especially since we have such a problem with gerrymandering in this country, especially since the average age of someone in Congress is much older than you or me, I think that term limits make a lot of sense. But I haven’t yet seen legislation that I actually agree with from soup to nuts on that issue.
Another nuts-and-bolts Congress question: a lot of power is determined by what House committees you serve on. Are there any committees that you’d be interested in joining?
I love this question and I never have a good answer. I really care a lot about government oversight and processes to firm up our democracy, and I’m a huge fan of Jamie Raskin, so serving with him on Oversight would be amazing. Same with Judiciary – I think those are two really interesting ones from a process standpoint. But then I think about our district and my expertise academically; I have an expertise in education, I have a great deal of interest in agriculture and land use. I could see doing Agriculture, I could see doing Education and Labor, and I could see myself doing something with democracy and process. And I have a real interest in foreign affairs; I haven’t been able to exercise that in Trenton as much, but it’s also an interest. I’ve lived overseas a few times, studied overseas. Those issues, internationally, are very pertinent to this country and our safety and economy. I have a broad range of interests; I think a lot will depend on who is in leadership and the type of learning I can do working under someone who has the gavel. I will keep an open mind on that.
The biggest thing that Congress has accomplished this year was the passage of the foreign aid package benefiting Ukraine and Israel. How would you have voted on that package, particularly its Israel portion, which in the House was voted on separately? The Israel bill divided a lot of Democrats, with some voting no, some voting yes – where are you on that?
I would have voted yes across the board. I am very concerned about the death toll in Gaza. I’m concerned particularly about the women in Gaza, who have no political power and are the victims of horrible violence; I think of the children whose futures are topsy-turvy and who have suffered great trauma. But I’m really, really, really not comfortable with a unilateral ceasefire that puts the onus on Israel as being the only one to stop the war, when Hamas and Hezbollah, which are both Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, have continued to lob an offensive into Israel and keep the violence on Israel’s shores. I definitely would have supported the package to Israel, because I think they need to be able to defend themselves.
I think what happened on October 7 was horrific. But I’d like Netanyahu to start to orient himself towards peace, and it’s very concerning to me that I’m not sure his motivations are aligned there. Peace involves eliminating the threat from Hamas, but I want long-term peace to be part of the equation in the Middle East. I think it’s important for Israel to have long-term peace; I think it doesn’t behoove them to continuously make enemies on this front. But Israel was the victim of a terrorist attack. Today’s 9/11, and some of us can remember that horrible day – I can only imagine the terror and fear that Israeli people feel living in a neighborhood, geographically, with a lot of neighbors who don’t think they should exist. I’m absolutely not interested in litigating 1948, that’s a nonstarter for me.
It’s important that the United States stands by its allies, even if the leaders of those countries are not people we like that much. God forbid Trump is elected, I would expect our allies to stand with us even through another tumultuous four years of Trump, so we have to pay that back to our allies as well. Stability in the world requires allies who are consistent and show up. It’s true in Jersey politics, and it’s true in geopolitical politics. So I consider myself an ally to Israel, and would have voted for that bill.
Is there anything that the Biden administration has done regarding Israel and Palestine that you have disagreed with, where you think that they took the wrong course?
No. This isn’t Israel/Palestine, but I don’t agree with the way we withdrew from Afghanistan. It was Biden’s choice on how to do that and Kamala Harris defended it last night, and it’s something I don’t agree with. While I don’t think we should have been in Afghanistan until the end of time, I think there was a proper way to exit Afghanistan. The Taliban’s in charge of Afghanistan now; many of our friends who helped us out suffered greatly and continue to suffer, and women suffer currently under Taliban rule. I don’t always agree with Biden on foreign policy, and that’s one example, but I think so far on Israel, the administration’s done a fairly good job.
Another super important issue that Congress is constantly talking about is abortion. Last night, in the debate, Donald Trump said he’s not in favor of a national abortion ban, but then he declined to say he would veto one if it came across his desk. Do you believe him and other Republicans who say that they’re not interested in passing federal abortion legislation?
No, sadly I’m not. I don’t believe them; I don’t believe Tom Kean Jr., because he’s been all over the map on this issue. He’s been consistently bad on it. He won’t sign onto Susan Wild’s bipartisan bill that would protect IVF and enshrine it into law, but he puts out all these other fake bills which also have “IVF” in the name but do nothing to enshrine the right into law. I do think that if Mike Johnson has the gavel again, he will make it his business to pass a national abortion ban. This guy [Johnson] is all about banning abortions coast to coast in this country – I mean, he doesn’t even believe in gay marriage, so he is way out of step with Jersey values.
Unfortunately, and I think this goes back to what is Tom Kean’s fatal flaw, Tom Kean Jr. has never stood up to leadership in the Republican Party – not when he was in Trenton as a state senator, and not when he has been in Congress this last cycle. So I have very little faith that Tom Kean Jr. will rise to the occasion and vote down a measure like that. There’s no evidence that’s the case, and over and over again, when he’s had the chance to vote – even moderate Republicans have defected from the majority on abortion issues in certain cases, but Tom Kean Jr. has decided not to do that. I will tell you, from being in this campaign for about a year and a half, that women in this district, families in this district, and a lot of men and dads find the cowardice of Kean Jr. on this issue to be extremely frustrating.
The last thing I would say is, I was born in 1982; I was in high school in the 90s and graduated in the class of 2000. And I remember those days in the late 90s and early 2000s when women were making a lot of gains. I was an athlete, and there was that World Cup game, and all of a sudden people were watching women’s soccer and women’s basketball – it was a real moment where you felt like women’s rights were just going to continue to grow and grow and grow. I was raised with the belief that I could do anything, and I could choose if and when I wanted to have children. Our mothers and grandmothers fought for that right. And it makes me sick to my stomach to think I will have maybe lived through the high-water mark of women’s rights in my entire life when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. I’m running in great part to make sure we reclaim those rights, don’t go backwards anymore, and that the young girls who I see running around this district are able to grow up with the same opportunities that I had, if not more.
One frequent response from Republicans, including Trump as we saw at the debate, is, “Well, it’s Democrats who are the extreme ones on abortion; they support abortions up to the ninth month,” and so on. Do you think that there are any reasonable restrictions that could or should be placed on when and how women can get abortions?
I mean, I am not a physician. I have not undergone medical training. Pregnancy is really hard on the body, and so it strikes me as very unlikely that there are many women at all who carry a baby eight or nine months – that is a real undertaking, that takes a lot out on your body – with the intent of, in the eleventh hour, aborting that child. I just don’t think that happens.
And much more often, if you ban all abortions in the ninth month or eighth month or whatever month, what you have are these stories that come out of places like Alabama and Texas, where women are going into sepsis – their organs are failing – because they’re on the precipice of having a miscarriage but their doctors can’t do anything about it. They’re literally putting their lives in danger, and they can’t leave the state, because you can’t just get on the plane and leave if something goes wrong in a late-term pregnancy – you’re bleeding, you’re uncomfortable, you’re in pain, if you’ve gone into sepsis you need to be hooked up to a hospital bed. I look at those two things – one’s a hypothetical, and one’s real life. I’m not interested in me, Sue Altman, making a decision about what a woman should and shouldn’t be able to do with her body. That should be between her and her physician, based on her current medical situation.
The 7th district is one of the wealthiest congressional districts in the country. There was a report from before redistricting – so this is a little bit out of date – that put it at #12 out of all 435 House seats in terms of median income. If you’re elected, your job will obviously be to advocate for the constituents you have, but how will you balance that with advocating for poorer people who can’t afford to be your constituents? What do you do if the needs of your district come into conflict with the needs of Americans writ large?
First of all, I actually don’t think there will be that much conflict. My job will be to represent all people in this district, and we have not-small pockets of poverty in this district, and definitely a large number of working-class folks. In general, New Jersey’s salaries tend to be higher than what you see across the country.
If anything, what this underscores for me is that if my friends and family and voters here in this district feel like they’re being squeezed by costs, they can’t afford health care, they’re worried if somebody gets sick, they’re worried when the price of groceries goes up, they’re worried when the SALT deduction has been taken away, and in the grand scheme of things, they’re fairly affluent people – then my God! The people who are below them on the income level are really, really, really struggling. For me, all it does is illuminate the broader problem. This isn’t a district with a lot of billionaires in it; they’re upper-middle class. I guarantee you that the policies that will help working-class Americans will help my constituents in this district, and I don’t see any incongruence between them.
We’re less than eight weeks away from the election. Most, though not all, national political forecasters still rate this race as leaning towards Republicans. And outside groups have not yet gotten involved in the race, have not yet spent any money in New Jersey. What is your plan in the next eight weeks to make this district blue?
Well, Joey, you probably saw our ad on TV yesterday, because you broke it in the Globe! We’ve outraised Kean the last two quarters; we are doing a great job raising money, and we have one of the most badass grassroots doorknocking operations in the entire country. We know that if people know who I am, and if they’re aware of what Tom Kean has said and not done in his time in Congress, then we will without a doubt win this race. So what we need are resources to make sure that we get that message out. We are spending aggressively starting yesterday, we’ll spend aggressively through Election Day, and I fully intend to win this race.
It’s great to feel like this is a change election, and [Kean’s] kind of yesterday’s news. I carry a story of change; I carry a story of standing up to both parties; I carry a story of having an independent streak, but also being an institutionalist. Tom Kean Jr. is a lifelong politician who’s pretty boring and doesn’t have many accomplishments to his name. I’m feeling pretty confident that on the merits, we win this race. I’m pretty excited about Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, followed by Andy Kim – I think that’s a great one-two punch above me. I’m feeling pretty good going into these last eight weeks. I’d rather be us than him.