The race for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district is likely to be the most expensive election in New Jersey this year, and one of the district’s leading Democratic candidates, former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, is fundraising like it.
Bennett’s campaign announced today that she raised more than $700,000 in the 1st quarter of 2026, by far her largest fundraising quarter yet and one of the largest quarters any New Jersey congressional candidate has posted this cycle.
Bennett has raised a total of nearly $2.7 million since launching her campaign last year, and unlike some of her Democratic foes in the 7th district, none of that has come from self-funding. Her campaign said that over 13,000 individual donors have given to her campaign, with 93% of them giving less than $100.
“I’m incredibly grateful for the massive support behind this campaign to deliver real results for our community,” she said in a statement. “With the momentum behind us, we’re ready to flip this seat and deliver for NJ-07 families.”
Bennett has also already spent quite a bit of money on the race – more than $1 million thus far – and ended the 1st quarter with $1.4 million on-hand.
The 7th district is currently held by Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), a top Democratic target, who had $2.5 million in his campaign warchest at the end of 2025. The district is located in the expensive New York City media market, putting further fundraising pressure on any Democratic candidate seeking to defeat Kean.
So far, the four Democratic candidates for the district have all heeded that pressure; each of them had raised more than a million dollars by the end of January, an unprecedented feat in a New Jersey primary.
As of the end of last year, businessman Brian Varela had raised $1.8 million (much of which was self-funded), physician Tina Shah had raised $1 million, and former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth had raised $610,000, which was later supplemented by a $400,000 donation from his own pockets. None have yet announced their fundraising totals from the 1st quarter of 2026, which just ended yesterday.
At least in theory, that kind of money leaves the primary wide open, and a February internal poll from Shah’s campaign indeed found that most Democratic voters haven’t yet made up their minds about who to support.
Bennett, though, has another advantage on her side: party support. Four of the 7th district’s six county Democratic organizations, representing more than four-fifths of the district’s Democratic primary electorate, endorsed her during county convention season, which gives her key allies in the party establishment that none of her opponents can match.