Three Democrats running for New Jersey’s most competitive congressional district are all heading into the June primary with a nearly identical amount of money to spend, but only one of them has raised that money entirely from donors.
Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, has emerged as the 7th district’s best Democratic fundraiser (and one of the best fundraisers in New Jersey history), raising $2,656,002 since her campaign launch last February and $712,028 in the 1st quarter of 2026.
She’s also already spent quite a bit of that money, though, and the $1,426,395 she has on-hand is approximately in line with what two of her opponents, physician Tina Shah and businessman Brian Varela, have to spend. Shah ended the 1st quarter with $1,376,303, while Varela had $1,332,839.
Both of those totals have been boosted substantially by self-funding: Shah gave her own campaign $650,000 of the $960,335 she raised this past quarter, and although Varela only raised $101,822 in Q1, he had previously loaned his campaign more than $1.1 million. Varela said in a statement on his low fundraising total that he had spent the 1st quarter, which included six county endorsement votes, “focused on increasing our grassroots support.”
“Going into the final 48 days of this primary, we have a winning message, a massive team of volunteers and the resources necessary to ensure we reach the voters who will vote for us,” Varela said.
A fourth candidate, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, self-funded $400,000 of the $555,676 he raised in Q1, and he ended the quarter with $726,286 on-hand.
“This campaign has what it needs to communicate in the final seven weeks, but our real strength is that we are people-powered,” Roth said. “We have seen the power of grassroots just recently in the NJ-11 primary and we are building the same energy and momentum as we approach election day.”
(For completionism’s sake: two other Democrats who ended their campaigns on filing day, Megan O’Rourke and Beth Adubato, raised $111,596 and $54,410 in the 1st quarter, respectively.)
In other words, there will be plenty of money to go around on all sides ahead of the June 2 primary, assuming the three self-funders choose to actually spend the money they’ve invested in their campaigns. Bennett has the support of most of the district’s Democratic establishment, but without the county line, nothing is guaranteed and much of the primary contest will be fought on the airwaves and in voters’ mailboxes – which, of course, costs money.
That’s encouraging news for Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), a prodigious fundraiser himself who has no primary opposition. Kean has raised $4,374,665 since the start of the cycle, including $1,117,170 in Q1, and has $3,356,545 on-hand.
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