Anyone with a television set (or a laptop, or a phone, or an internet connection) knows how it goes. After Labor Day, campaign season “officially” begins, which means it’s time for a neverending barrage of political ads telling them how great one candidate is, how much another one stinks, and how this is the most important election of their lives.
With both the race for the White House and the battle over Congress taking place largely in other states, New Jersey isn’t at the center of the political universe this year – but that doesn’t mean that its voters get to escape the ad wars. Candidates for the U.S. Senate and the 7th congressional district have already raised millions of dollars to spend, and national groups could parachute in to put even more ads on the airwaves.
Those ads will feature the messages that candidates have decided are most effective, and they’ll also indicate where the parties believe their money is most wisely spent. If a seemingly competitive race isn’t drawing much spending, or a sleepier one suddenly gets a major infusion of money, that’s a sign that someone knows something the rest of us don’t.
Here are eight things to watch for as TVs around the state and country begin their long slog to November.
Will outside groups get involved in the 7th district?
From the day that the 118th Congress was sworn into office in January 2023, it’s been obvious that Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) was going to be in for a tough re-election fight. Kean unseated Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) by a close 51.4%-48.6% margin in 2022 and represents a district carried by Joe Biden in 2020, making his 7th congressional district a top target for Democrats looking to flip the House back.
Based on fundraising, the contest between him and Democrat Sue Altman has indeed become a highly competitive one; as of June, Kean had raised $4.2 million to Altman’s $3 million, totals that have surely only grown since then (all fundraising data will remain out of date until the October 15 filing deadline for 3rd quarter reports). But now comes the big test for Altman: can she get national Democratic groups to come to her aid?
Back in 2022, after congressional redistricting made the 7th district harder to win for Democrats, national Democratic groups largely left Malinowski to fend for himself. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC (HMP) spent $1.5 million on Malinowski’s behalf, a sum that was dwarfed by the $6 million investment made by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF).
In order to keep pace with Kean this year, Altman must convince the HMP and the DCCC that she’s worth investing in. The NRCC and the CLF, meanwhile, will have to decide whether Kean needs the same kind of backup he did in 2022, or whether they can afford to direct their resources towards other races instead.
Acccording to the campaign spending tracker Open Secrets, the 7th district has seen minimal outside spending so far, with $85,000 coming from the CLF to boost Kean and hit Altman. All four major party committees have booked massive amounts of money in the New York media market, but because ad reservations don’t have to specify individual races, there’s no way of knowing yet if any of that money will be spent in the 7th district.
If the party committees do indeed start spending heavily soon, it means that the 7th district remains a top race. If the next couple of weeks go by without a peep from any of them, however, that’s a sign that Kean is in a solid spot for re-election.
What kinds of messages will Kean and Altman be putting on the air?
Regardless of what the party committees do, of course, Kean and Altman themselves will be up with plenty of TV and digital ads between now and November, and it will be worth paying attention to how they introduce themselves to voters and defend themselves against their opponents’ attacks.
Kean released his first TV ad of the season yesterday, a spot that flaunts his anti-corruption credentials and presents him as a dogged fighter for the 7th district; Altman hasn’t gone on the air yet, but when she does, she has her own background as a basketball player, teacher, and longtime foe of the state political establishment to tout.
As for attack ads, Kean has an easy place to start: the New Jersey Working Families Party, which Altman led until 2023 and which has taken progressive stances on issues like defunding the police that are out of step with the moderate 7th district. Altman has lots of material to work with, too, and could hit Kean hard on his support for Donald Trump and his failure to advocate for abortion rights in Congress (two topics that were also in heavy rotation during Malinowski’s 2022 campaign).
How will Kean deal with the Trump question (which he largely sidestepped in his 2020 and 2022 campaigns)? How will Altman try to defuse the attacks on her more liberal past? The next two months of ads will likely provide some answers.
How expensive will the race for the U.S. Senate become?
The contest for New Jersey’s open U.S. Senate seat, between Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) and Republican hotelier Curtis Bashaw, isn’t likely to be pivotal for control of the Senate. After disgraced Senator Bob Menendez announced his resignation this summer, most of the country lost interest in the race, which tilts clearly in Kim’s favor.
But Kim has a boatload of money – $4 million as of June – that he can spend, much of which was intended for a Democratic primary against First Lady Tammy Murphy that never came to be. For the next two months, he could blanket the state with ads boosting his own name recognition as a three-term congressman and former State Department official, and slamming Bashaw as a millionaire Trump endorser.
Bashaw, meanwhile, will have to decide how best to use his own more limited resources. Thanks to self-funding, he had $1.1 million on-hand in his most recent fundraising report, but it’s not clear whether he plans on making further investments in the race – and if he is, how deep into his own pockets he’s willing to go. A million bucks won’t get him very far in a state with two expensive media markets and with millions of voters who have never heard the name Curtis Bashaw.
National groups, for their part, seem unlikely to wade into the race; if they do, that’s an extremely foreboding sign for Democrats, who should be far ahead in a statewide federal race in New Jersey.
What role will the presidential election play in New Jersey races?
Back in the spring, former President Donald Trump made noises about playing seriously for New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes against President Joe Biden. But Trump and his New Jersey allies have made essentially no moves to put together a real presidential campaign in the state since then, especially after Vice President Kamala Harris became the new Democratic nominee.
While minimal recent polling makes it tough to say exactly where the two presidential candidates stand among New Jersey voters or who might have longer coattails, it’s clear that both sides continue to view New Jersey as a safe blue state. That means both presidential campaigns will be spending their money elsewhere (although South Jerseyans are in the Philadelphia media market and thus won’t escape the highly competitive race for Pennsylvania’s electoral votes).
Candidates in New Jersey, however, may still try to use the presidential election to their advantage. It behooves Altman, Kim, and basically every other Democratic candidate in the state to tie their opponents to Trump, who has never been popular in New Jersey; Kean and other Republicans, meanwhile, may try to attack Democrats over Kamala Harris’s role in the still-unpopular Biden administration.
How late is too late to start advertising?
New Jersey no longer really has Election Day – it has Election Month-and-a-Half. The first mail-in ballots will hit mailboxes on September 21, meaning that candidates only have just over two weeks to make their case to voters before the earliest votes are cast; the time has come for them to break out of their bubbles and really make a play for undecided voters.
The dilemma for many candidates, particularly Altman and Bashaw, is that they need to preserve their resources for the home stretch of the campaign while also making sure that they introduce themselves to voters who plan on voting long before November 5. Unless they have an infinite money generator, that’s a tough balance to strike.
Most voters in the 7th district, for example, already know of and have an opinion on Tom Kean Jr., and will vote accordingly. Altman, however, will remain a relative unknown until voters see her ads on the air or her flyers in their mailboxes, and the days before September 21 are disappearing fast.
Do Herb Conaway or Nellie Pou have anything to worry about? What about Jeff Van Drew?
New Jersey Democrats will have two open Democratic-leaning House seats to defend in November – and they’re not seeming particularly concerned about either.
In the 3rd district, Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D-Delran) will go up against Republican Rajesh Mohan, a doctor from Holmdel; in the 9th district, which was held by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) until his death last month, State Sen. and replacement nominee Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) is facing threepeat Republican challenger Billy Prempeh.
There’s been no flood of campaign donations in either district, nor has there been any indication from outside groups that they’re interested in getting involved. As long as that status quo remains in place, it should be smooth sailing for Conaway and Pou in November; if either race does unexpectedly draw substantial spending, that’s a sign that it’s grown into something more competitive than previously thought.
The same is true for the 2nd district, where self-funding Democratic entrepreneur Joe Salerno is hoping to deny Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) a fourth term. Like Prempeh and Mohan, Salerno needs to introduce himself to voters as soon as possible to have much of a chance at winning, and campaign spending will be a clear indication of whether he’s been able to make the race competitive.
Will Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill use their money for longer-term gains?
Two Democratic representatives from former swing seats, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) and Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), are both facing obscure opponents with very little hope of winning this year – but both incumbents might still spend quite a bit of money on their re-election campaigns.
Why? Because in what must be New Jersey’s most open political secret, both Gottheimer and Sherrill are likely to run for governor next year, and any ads they air this year can be used to boost their name recognition ahead of the June 2025 primary. State law prohibits them from using their federal campaign money to directly promote their gubernatorial campaigns, but more generic messages about standing up to Trump or fighting for affordable health care are fair game.
Gottheimer in particular has an eye-popping amount of money to work with: $19.4 million, as of the most recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports. With that kind of money, he could bury the New York media market (which covers a majority of the New Jersey electorate) in ads promoting himself and eviscerating his Republican opponent Mary Guinchard. Sherrill had a comparatively modest $1.7 million on-hand as of June, but that’s still more than enough to put up a few ads on the air.
Tracking how much the two representatives spend, and what kinds of ads they spend it on, will be an early preview of what their gubernatorial campaigns might look like – and just how committed they are to them.
Are New Jersey candidates going to get drowned out?
As anyone who watches TV during election season knows, people don’t just get ads for races that they can actually vote in; they see every ad that’s being aired in their entire media market, regardless of whether the candidate is from their state or district. That’s an annoyance that New Jerseyans, who are split between the New York City media market in the north and the Philadelphia media market in the south, have to deal with every two years.
And this year in particular, with few competitive races in New Jersey but lots in Pennsylvania and New York, spots from New Jersey candidates might make up only a small percentage of the ads that New Jersey voters are seeing. For every hypothetical Herb Conaway TV ad, say, that Burlington County voters get, there might be 100 ads from Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Bob Casey, and Dave McCormick trying to woo Pennsylvania voters.
Of course, there are other ways of spending money and reaching voters, like targeted digital ads, mailers, and door-knocking. But nothing reaches quite so far and wide as TV advertising, and there will be a lot of it between now and November.