As is the case in countless congressional races around the country, the battle for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district between Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) and Democrat Sue Altman is revolving in part around the issue of abortion. And this morning, Altman went on the air with a 15-second TV spot castigating Kean as an anti-choice extremist.
“Tom Kean Jr. has dangerous anti-abortion views,” a Mountainside resident named Erica says in the ad. “Kean is such an extremist, he’s refused to protect IVF. And Kean backed those who want a national abortion ban. Kean is wrong and dangerous for New Jersey.”
Altman’s campaign said that it is spending in the “high six figures” to air the ad in the 7th district.
Kean has repeatedly said – including in a New Jersey Globe debate on Sunday night – that he is pro-choice and opposes any efforts to put a nationwide abortion ban in place. He’s also insisted that he strongly supports in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a fertility treatment that entered the spotlight this year after it was briefly banned in Alabama due to the state’s anti-abortion laws.
But Altman argued during that same debate that Kean hasn’t always stood up for abortion during his time in public office. Kean voted against a bill codifying Roe v. Wade into New Jersey law when he was a state senator, and said during his 2022 House campaign that he would fight to “protect the unborn from egregious abortion laws”; Altman has also faulted him for not signing onto Democratic Rep. Susan Wild’s bill explicitly protecting IVF.
“If Tom Kean, Jr. didn’t want to be known as an anti-abortion extremist, then he shouldn’t have voted like one,” Altman campaign manager Rob West said in a statement accompanying the ad. “The people of NJ-07 overwhelmingly believe in reproductive freedom, and they don’t appreciate their supposed representative working hand-in-hand with the most extreme flank of his party to gut their fundamental right to make their own medical decisions.”