Blazakis raises $195k in first six weeks as NJ-7 candidate

Editor’s note: $71,600 of Blazakis’s $194,699 raised was self-funded, something that was not initially known.

Former U.S. State Department official Jason Blazakis announced today that he raised a solid $194,699 in his first six weeks as a candidate for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district, the most competitive congressional district in the state. Blazakis’s campaign had $177,774 still left in the bank at the end of the 3rd fundraising quarter.

“Former national security official Jason Blazakis has the experience and steady hand we need in Congress to keep us safe and deliver real results,” Blazakis spokesperson Zack Carroll said in a statement. “In the final six weeks of the quarter, Jason’s campaign has hit the ground running and is building the campaign that will beat Tom Kean.”

Blazakis is one of two Democratic candidates in the race to take on Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield); the other is former New Jersey Working Families Party director Sue Altman. A third contender, Roselle Park Mayor Joe Signorello, dropped out of the race earlier this week, citing difficulties with fundraising.

Altman currently has a significant financial edge, though that’s in part because she got into the race in May while Blazakis entered in August. Over the course of four months of campaigning, Altman has raised a total of $500,000; she raised $218,000 during her first month in the race, putting her fundraising pace a modest amount ahead of Blazakis’s.

At this stage of the race, the people watching Altman’s and Blazakis’s fundraising numbers most closely are local party leaders across the 7th district who will play a key role in determining who gets the Democratic nomination. 

That puts the onus on Blazakis to spend the next quarter catching up to Altman’s totals in order to convince those party leaders that he’s the right candidate for the race. A national security consultant and former top counterterrorism official at the State Department, Blazakis grew up in Warren County and moved back to Hunterdon County for his congressional campaign.

Whoever does emerge from the Democratic primary is set to face a competitive and expensive race against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield). Kean hasn’t announced his 3rd quarter fundraising haul yet, but as of July, he had raised $1.7 million in 2023 and had $1.5 million cash on-hand.

This story was corrected to fix an error related to Altman’s fundraising numbers. She raised $218,000 during her first month in the race, not $210,000 in her first six weeks.