Outside group spending $280k on anti-Kean digital ad

This fall, outside groups are likely to spend millions – perhaps even tens of millions – of dollars on the race for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district, where Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) is running for a third term. One progressive group, Unrig Our Economy, is getting a head start.

Unrig Our Economy is spending $280,000 to air a digital ad for the next month slamming Kean, a top Democratic target, on President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The ad cites two procedural votes Kean supported that blocked the House from considering anti-tariff legislation, and a third vote Kean took earlier this month opposing a bipartisan bill undoing Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

“I found out about a bill that supports higher tariffs, and our congressman, Tom Kean Jr., voted for it,” Michele, who runs a preschool in Hunterdon County, says in the ad. “On top of everything else, we can’t afford these tariffs.”

Unrig Our Economy has had Kean in its sights for a while, running several ads last summer slamming Republican-led cuts to Medicaid; it put $200,000 behind one of those campaigns, per Punchbowl News. The group is clearly part of the national liberal orbit and has spent money against a number of other Republican members of Congress as well, but because it’s a 501(c)(4) rather than a traditional super PAC, it faces fewer requirements when it comes to disclosing expenditures and donors.

In the 2024 race for the same district, outside groups spent close to $14 million to boost either Kean or his Democratic foe, Sue Altman; most of that money came from the Congressional Leadership Fund and the House Majority PAC, the super PACs affiliated with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders, respectively.