A top Republican super PAC is airing a new ad in New Jersey’s swingy 7th congressional district attacking Sue Altman, marking the first major outside investment in the district this cycle from either party.
The ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) hits Altman, the Democratic nominee against freshman Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), on a number of hot-button issues. Altman, the ad claims, supports implementing far-reaching tax hikes, defunding the police, and decriminalizing dangerous substances – “Higher taxes, fewer cops, more deadly drugs: that’s radical Sue Altman.”
Criticizing political opponents as extreme is nothing new, but Altman, who served as the New Jersey director of the progressive Working Families Party, has indeed flirted with some of the “radical” stances that the ad highlights. In 2020, for example, she sent out a tweet that included the hashtag “#DefundThePolice,” drawing the ire of many in law enforcement; she has since said she regrets the tweet and does not support the defund movement.
(The ad also uses imagery of Altman being dragged away by police officers, but that has nothing to do with the 2020 protests against the police; instead, they came from a 2019 incident when Altman attempted to testify against a Democratic-led corporate tax break bill in the New Jersey Legislature and was forcibly removed.)
The CLF, which is affiliated with GOP House leadership, did not immediately say how much it is spending to air the ad on TV and digital platforms. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the CLF has reported spending $383,000 in the district so far, but that may not account for the PAC’s full investment in its new ad.
If nothing else, the ad is a sign that national Republicans are taking the race in the 7th district – one of 18 Republican-held House districts nationwide that was carried by Joe Biden in 2020 – seriously enough to warrant spending money to aid Kean.
But the CLF still has a long way to go to match its investment in the 7th district in 2022, when Kean was running to unseat Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes). That cycle, the CLF spent a whopping $4.5 million in the district, most of it on ads savaging Malinowski; the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent another $1.5 million on top of that.
It remains to be seen whether this year will attract similar levels of outside spending. In addition to the CLF, Kean has also gotten several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of support from a PAC led by billionaire Elon Musk; Altman, for her part, has not yet been the beneficiary of any expenditures from Democratic outside groups.
Script: “She’s radically liberal. Sue Altman repeatedly called for raising middle-class taxes. Altman even supported the radical plan to raise taxes over $3 billion a year. But even more radical: Sue Altman supported defunding the police. And after Altman defended decriminalizing crack, heroin, and fentanyl, New Jersey faced more than 3,000 overdose deaths. Higher taxes, fewer cops, more deadly drugs: that’s radical Sue Altman.”
This story was updated at 10:03 a.m. with a correction: Musk’s PAC has spent several hundred thousand dollars supporting Kean, not several thousand.