The four Democrats running for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district will all spend plenty of their own campaigns’ money and time reaching out to voters ahead of the June 2 primary. But just in case anyone else wants to give them a hand, they’ve got some tips.
“Likely Democratic primary voters need to see on BROADCAST, cable, and digital that Brian Varela is the only true progressive in this race,” reads a passage on Brian Varela’s website.
“Democratic primary voters in NJ-7, especially older women and voters of color, need to see and read that Dr. Tina Shah, a practicing ICU doctor, is running for Congress because Trump and Tom Kean Jr. are ripping away healthcare and destroying our democracy,” Tina Shah’s website declares.
Rebecca Bennett’s website has some specific advice for where these hypothetical supporters should focus their money. “Supporters that want to assist with video communication should ensure that Likely Democratic primary voters in NJ CD 7 see ads with this message on digital and streaming platforms and OTT/CTV, especially YouTube, MS NOW and CNN,” it says.
And Michael Roth’s has a particular schedule in mind: “Supporters who send mail should ensure that Democratic primary voters on the VBM list in NJ-07 read this message in the mail starting on April 28 and continuing through May 26.”
All four passages are publicly accessible on the candidates’ websites, though some are tucked away in harder-to-find corners. They’re also accompanied by photos and audio-free B-roll footage that can be used in mailers or video ads if anyone so chooses.
The intention, clearly, is to ease the path for super PACs that might want to get involved in the race but are prohibited from directly coordinating with the candidates themselves. Since the “red boxes,” as they’re known – named for the little red boxes that frequently encircle the desired messaging – are equally visible to all who know where to look, there’s no official coordination, and super PACs can learn exactly what their endorsed candidates want them to say without technically running afoul of the law.
For Bennett and Roth, the strategy has already paid dividends. The liberal veterans group VoteVets has spent more than $400,000 on pro-Bennett ads that almost perfectly echo the messaging in Bennett’s red boxes, while a new super PAC called Coalition for Progress has begun sending out pro-Roth mailers that do the same.
(A quick head-to-head comparison: “Rebecca will stop Trump’s cruel and illegal ICE raids, hold his Administration accountable for its rampant corruption and lawlessness, and end his reckless wars that are driving up prices at home,” reads one passage in Bennett’s red box; “[Rebecca will] take on all the Trump corruption, shut down these illegal ICE raids, and end Trump’s reckless wars that are driving prices and squeezing the life out of the middle class,” VoteVets’ ad declares.)
Red-boxing is hardly a new phenomenon around the country. In 2022, the New York Times ran a story on how little red boxes were appearing on dozens of candidates’ websites, saying that the strategy made “a mockery of campaign finance laws” – and they’ve only grown more omnipresent since then.
“What’s happening is, [outside groups] are functionally an arm of the campaign,” said Saurav Ghosh, the director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan good-government organization. “It really attacks the basic foundation of our money-in-politics framework and our campaign finance laws, and it takes us back to a place where, yes, the biggest corporations and wealthy individuals are in fact able to directly underwrite candidates.”
At least three other Democrats running for New Jersey congressional seats this year – Adam Hamawy and Adrian Mapp in the 12th district and Bayly Winder in the 2nd district – have red boxes on their website; Hamawy and Winder have already been the beneficiaries of super PAC spending. Another 12th district candidate, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, has no obvious red box but does provide silent B-roll footage on her website.
And in the special election for the 11th congressional district that took place earlier this year, red boxes were everywhere. Tahesha Way, Brendan Gill, Analilia Mejia, and Zach Beecher, who collectively benefited from millions of dollars in outside spending, all had red boxes on their websites telling outside groups exactly how that money would best be spent.
Gill’s red box went a step further, specifying who outside groups should attack: “It is important that Democratic voters watching YouTube and streaming services see that this race between Brendan Gill and Tom Malinowski is about an experienced fighter vs. a scandal-plagued, ethically-challenged former member of Congress.” Lo and behold, a pro-Gill PAC backed by labor unions dutifully spent around $50,000 dinging Malinowski.
Prior New Jersey election cycles, too, have seen red box action. Mikie Sherrill’s gubernatorial campaign website last year included an extensive red box featuring 24 pages of opposition research on Republican foe Jack Ciattarelli; in the 2024 Democratic primary for the 8th district, both Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla had red boxes to guide the super PACs that ultimately spent close to $2 million on the race.
Ideally, red boxes are easily findable by those who know to look for them but hidden enough that most voters wouldn’t think to click on them. Many candidate websites mark them with tags like “Media” or “What Voters Need to Know” and bury them near the bottom of their main pages; some of them are in fact surrounded by red boxes, but others simply assume interested parties will understand what they’re looking at.
And while red boxes may not abide with the spirit of anti-coordination laws regarding independent expenditures, the Federal Election Commission does not treat them as being against the law. Super PACs may not be able to communicate with candidates, but they can pull from publicly available information to guide their messaging; red boxes simply remove some of the intermediate steps in that process.
“If you were a campaign operative and you were to send an email to a super PAC staffer that said, ‘Hey, run ads targeted at men under 30 on Facebook and TikTok,’ that would be illegal, because that would be coordination,” Ghosh said. “But the FEC has taken the view that that same email, essentially, put into a red box on the campaign website, is not coordination.”
As New Jersey politics moves into its brave new world – one where party endorsements matter less and less, and money means more and more – the practice will probably only expand further. It may be a thing of the past that a New Jersey candidate can win a hotly contested congressional primary without a super PAC or two on their side, and red boxes are a key part of that new reality.
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April 22, 2026 -
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