Rebecca Bennett, the apparent Democratic frontrunner in the race for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district, spent her early years as a Republican.
That’s a fact confirmed by 2016 voter records in Maryland, where the then 29-year-old Bennett lived at the time, and not shied away from by Bennett herself. A former Navy helicopter pilot who spent more than a decade in the armed services, Bennett’s campaign said that she had grown up in a Republican family and remained relatively apolitical until the 2016 election.
“Having served for more than a decade on active duty in the military, Rebecca didn’t think much about politics, having been trained to be apolitical as she served her country with honor and dedication,” Bennett campaign manager Om Savargaonkar said in a statement. “But when the Republican Party embraced Donald Trump for President in 2016, she knew she had to do something. Before the Republicans even nominated Trump, she registered as a Democrat and sent a contribution to Hillary Clinton for President.”
Indeed, while Bennett requested a Republican primary ballot in April 2016 – her campaign declined to divulge how she voted in that race – she switched her party registration to Democratic in July 2016, one day before Trump officially became the GOP presidential nominee, and later posted on social media in support of Hillary Clinton. When she moved to New Jersey in 2019, it was as a Democrat.
(Bennett grew up in Texas and was registered to vote there before moving to Maryland, but Texas doesn’t have partisan registration.)
Bennett has also regularly donated to Democratic candidates beginning with the 2016 election, and started volunteering for them in 2020 after she left active duty. Bennett’s campaign said she had never made any donations to Republican candidates, and FEC records corroborate that.
Past GOP ties have harmed Democratic candidates before, such as when First Lady Tammy Murphy’s 2024 campaign for the U.S. Senate had to repeatedly field questions about her past support for, and donations to, Republicans like George W. Bush. Murphy, who remained a registered Republican until 2015, said she had since become a loyal Democrat, but it never fully quieted the attacks against her.
Bennett, though, defected from the GOP far earlier in her life (and far before any semblance of political ambitions arose), and her campaign said she’s been open with voters on the campaign trail about her political journey.
It’s a journey that may be familiar to many 7th district voters, given that the now-competitive district was once solidly Republican territory in the pre-Trump era. The modern lines of the 7th district voted for Mitt Romney by a 56% to 44% margin in the 2012 presidential election, the last time Trump wasn’t on the ballot; even now, the district is home to 20,000 more Republicans than Democrats.
“Throughout her life, Rebecca has been consistent about who she is and who she fights for, putting country over party,” Savargaonkar said. “That’s why voters in CD-7 will nominate her this June to take on Tom Kean, help flip the House, and hold Donald Trump accountable.”