Andy Kim will hold town hall in Westfield, invites Tom Kean Jr. to join him

Senator Andy Kim will be coming to Westfield this Saturday for a town hall, and he’s invited the city’s hometown GOP congressman, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), to join him.

In a town hall announcement shared with the New Jersey Globe, Kim’s office said the senator plans to “hear concerns” from 7th district residents about the One Big Beautiful Bill, which President Donald Trump signed into law two weeks ago, and about recent flooding in Central Jersey caused by heavy rainstorms. Kean is welcome to join him at Edison Intermediate School in Westfield at 10 a.m on July 19, Kim said, though the invitation is not necessarily a warm one.

“Senator Kim invites Congressman Tom Kean Jr. to join him at this town hall so the Congressman can explain to his constituents why he helped pass a budget that will put hospitals and health care centers in his district at risk of reducing services and put food banks at risk of closure, all while driving up costs for NJ-07 residents so that billionaires can have lower taxes,” the announcement reads.

A few hours after Kim issued the invitation, Kean firmly rejected it, calling it a “desperate stunt” in a statement to the Globe.

“This is a desperate stunt that politicians pull when they are incapable and out of ideas,” Kean said. “Everyone who attends this meeting deserves answers as to why Andy Kim opposed a full restoration of the SALT Deduction for every middle family in New Jersey and supported taxpayer-funded healthcare for people here illegally at the expense of the most vulnerable. My message is simple – watch what Andy Kim does, not what he says.”

Kim has publicly feuded with Kean in recent weeks over the Big Beautiful Bill, saying that Kean broke his promise by supporting a bill that keeps the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap in place (though it raises it from $10,000 to $40,000 through 2029) and implements cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. In a July 1 letter to Kean, Kim specifically invited him to hold a joint town hall together in the 7th district.

The ongoing feud originated, though, when Kean sent a letter to Kim in June accusing him and Senator Cory Booker of failing to get results on the SALT cap after years of inaction in Washington. The congressman has also argued that the Big Beautiful Bill strengthens Medicaid, rather than cutting it, by targeting “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

This isn’t the first time that Kim, elected to his first term in the Senate last year, has poked at New Jersey’s Republican congressmen via town halls. In March, Kim held his first series of town halls as a senator – and they just happened to be located in the state’s three GOP-held congressional districts.

Kean and his fellow Republican congressmen, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester), generally decline to hold in-person town halls, saying that they become a forum for activists and hecklers rather than a real way for local residents to speak with their representatives. Kean and Van Drew instead hold regular tele-town halls via phone, with Kean hosting his most recent one on July 1.

Kim’s aggressive targeting of Kean in particular also has clear political connotations; Kean represents one of the most competitive districts in the country, and Kim and other top New Jersey Democrats will likely work hard to unseat him in the midterm elections next year.

That’s exactly what Kim did last year, when he was running for his first term in the Senate. The then-congressman campaigned repeatedly across the 7th district with Democratic nominee Sue Altman; Altman ended up losing 52%-46% (and Kim failed to carry the district as well), but the two formed a strong enough bond that Altman was soon hired as Kim’s state director.

This story was updated at 5:55 p.m. with comment from Kean.