Shah goes negative on Bennett, escalating NJ-7 campaign

A new ad from Tina Shah’s campaign takes direct aim at one of her top competitors, Rebecca Bennett, in what represents a major escalation of the Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district.

The ad, which began running on cable, streaming, and digital platforms today, attacks Bennett for previously being a registered Republican, saying she “doesn’t want you to know the truth” about her past political affiliations. It also accuses Bennett of accepting “thousands from ICE contractors to fund her campaign,” pairing the attack with footage of ICE raids and protests.

The ad then contrasts Bennett with Shah, whom it says will “will fight ICE’s cruelty [and] Trump’s corruption, and do what’s right for New Jersey.”

Bennett was indeed a registered Republican in her early years; she’s said that she grew up in a conservative family in Texas and remained relatively apolitical during much of her time in the U.S. Navy. Once Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president in 2016, Bennett changed her Maryland party affiliation to Democratic, and became actively involved in Democratic campaigns after she moved to New Jersey in 2019.

As for campaign money from ICE contractors, Bennett accepted two donations – one $500 donation last year and one $2,500 donation this year – from employees of Palantir, the technology company that has hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of contracts with the Trump administration.

The ad is the clearest indication yet that Bennett’s foes see her as the candidate to beat with two weeks to go until primary day. Bennett has raised the most money and received the most party support of anyone in the race, and her campaign released an internal poll today that found her leading Shah, Brian Varela, and Michael Roth by a large margin.

That same poll, crucially, also found all four candidates to be generally well-liked by the district’s Democratic voters. In order to beat Bennett, her opponents will likely have to drive her numbers down, and Shah’s new ad is the first concrete step anyone has taken towards that goal.

Bennett’s campaign manager, Om Savargaonkar, called Shah’s ad the “worst kind of dirty politics” and said that Bennett herself will “stay positive” through the June 2 primary. 

“While Rebecca has remained laser-focused on flipping CD-7 this November, the Shah campaign has resorted to the final refuge of losing campaigns: desperate gutter politics,” Savargaonkar said. “Let’s be clear: these misleading, duplicitous hit pieces are the worst kind of dirty politics, and there is no room for them in this primary.”

Prior to today, the primary for the 7th district had been largely cordial, at least in public. The four Democratic candidates, none of whom has held elected office before, have focused most of their messaging on introducing themselves to voters and making the case for why they’re the best-positioned to unseat Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield).

In fact, all four Democrats met for a debate just last week, and neither Shah nor anyone else mentioned Bennett’s past party affiliation or Palantir donations; the only time Bennett was confronted directly was when Roth said her housing policies would “drive up the wealth gap in this country.”