Although the New Jersey political world – and two of its members of Congress – were laser-focused this spring on the state’s gubernatorial primaries, the race for the state’s 12 House seats and one Senate seat continued soldiering ahead, with some key races coming into clearer focus during the second fundraising quarter of 2025.
In the highly competitive GOP-held 7th district, both incumbent Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) and several of his would-be Democratic challengers had impressive fundraising quarters in what’s turning out to be a fast-developing race. The GOP primary for Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon)’s 9th district, on the other hand, is moving much more slowly despite the district’s competitiveness on paper.
And two of the quarter’s best fundraisers aren’t in competitive races at all: Senator Cory Booker raised millions upon millions in the wake of his marathon Senate speech, while Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) had her best-ever fundraising quarter after a prosecutor aligned with Donald Trump brought federal assault charges against her.
Here’s what the state’s congressional fundraising looked like during the second quarter of 2025, which covers April 1 through June 30. Click here for a web version of the New Jersey Globe’s fundraising tracker, or scroll to the bottom of this article for a PDF version.
U.S. Senate (2026)
Senator Booker took to the Senate floor in the waning hours of March 31 to speak in protest of President Donald Trump’s policy agenda, and he was still speaking a full 25 hours later – right as the second quarter of 2025 was beginning. Liberal donors, energized by the former Newark mayor’s message and stamina, opened their wallets accordingly.
Booker raised $9,694,362 during Q2, an enormous sum for a senator a year and a half out from his re-election campaign in a contest that’s not expected to be hugely competitive. According to his campaign, 200,000 unique donors gave money, and 76% of the senator’s donations were under $25.
And so far, Booker is essentially fundraising in a vacuum. No Republican opponent – or Democratic primary challenger, for that matter – has filed to run against him and take on his enormous $19,643,810 campaign warchest (that, if he conserves it, could theoretically be transferred over one day into a presidential campaign account).
CD-1
Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) was waylaid for nearly all of the second quarter by a severe gallbladder infection, but it didn’t seem to slow down his fundraising: the South Jersey congressman raised $270,438 and has $1,934,062 on-hand to face down whoever might eventually enter the race for his solidly blue district.
CD-2
Donald Trump’s closest ally in New Jersey, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), raised $342,486 in the second quarter. The four-term congressman, who represents a once-competitive district that has become steadily more conservative in recent years, has $944,708 in his warchest.
One Democratic challenger, though, raised around half of Van Drew’s total during a single week in the race. Bayly Winder, a former USAID official, launched his campaign at the end of June and quickly raised $171,552; national Democrats have signaled some interest in trying to flip the 2nd district next year despite the headwinds against them.
Another Democrat running for the district, Terri Reese, filed with the FEC after the Q2 deadline had already passed.
CD-3
After winning his first term in Congress last year, Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran) raised $218,086 in Q2 and has $288,915 on-hand.
That’s far more than his lone GOP opponent, registered nurse Linda McMahon, reported raising: McMahon filed a document with the FEC attesting that she had raised precisely $0, obviating the need for a full FEC report. No one else has yet stepped up to run for the light-blue 3rd district.
CD-4
Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester), who is always under some threat of a potential primary challenge in his deep-red district but who has no announced challengers as of yet, raised $109,208 – in line with the congressman’s typical fundraising quarters – and has $400,586 on-hand.
CD-5
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) poured much of his extraordinary congressional warchest into a super PAC supporting his campaign for governor this spring, but it turns out he didn’t use up nearly his entire stockpile.
After transferring nearly $10 million of his House campaign’s $21 million into his Affordable New Jersey super PAC during the first quarter of 2025, Gottheimer put in another $2,191,682 during the second quarter ahead of the June 10 Democratic primary.
That still left $8,894,429 in Gottheimer’s campaign account, though, that he chose to withhold for future congressional campaigns – wisely, as it turns out, given that he came in fourth place in the gubernatorial primary and is now set to run for re-election to the House in the 5th district, which voted only narrowly for Kamala Harris last year. (Gottheimer also raised another $52,161 during the quarter.)
Mary Jo Guinchard, Gottheimer’s GOP opponent in 2024, is running again and raised $115,632 in the second quarter, $100,000 of which came from her own pockets.
CD-6
After spending the spring in the national spotlight as the ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and fighting back against the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) raised $330,896 in Q2 and has an enormous $3,224,516 in the bank.
His lone declared challenger, investment analyst Katie Bansil, has continued to keep her own campaign afloat via self-funding; she raised $3,753 in the second quarter, $3,000 of it from herself, and has $21 left over.
CD-7
The one New Jersey congressional race that has truly taken off, fundraising-wise, is in the one district that was originally designed to be highly competitive: Rep. Kean’s 7th district.
Kean, who has long been the New Jersey GOP’s best congressional fundraiser, raised a huge $931,677, nearly replicating his equally enormous first quarter. In a district that narrowly voted for Donald Trump last year and that has hosted competitive House elections four cycles in a row, Kean ended the quarter with $1,509,020 on-hand.
His best-funded Democratic opponent so far is former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, who raised $487,129 in the second quarter and has raised $913,847 overall since launching her campaign in February. Businessman and former 8th district candidate Brian Varela raised $693,883 in the second quarter, his first quarter in the race, though that comes with the caveat that Varela personally funded $400,000 of his total.
Former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth also entered the race during the second quarter, and he raised $302,880. Rounding out the field is former Summit Councilman Greg Vartan, who raised just $55,751 during the second quarter and $157,021 in the five months he’s been running.
One other declared candidate, physician Tina Shah, entered the race after the filing deadline, though she announced that she raised $260,000 in her first day as a candidate. As for criminal justice professor Beth Adubato, she filed to run for the 7th district in May, but said she wouldn’t be actually joining the race until later in the summer and didn’t report raising any money.
Lastly, there’s Michael Garth, a mysterious Democratic candidate who entered the race during the first quarter, gave his own campaign $500, and then promptly filed termination paperwork in June.
It’s probably still too early to say what any of this means for who will eventually win the district’s Democratic nomination. What it does clearly mean, though, is that Democrats are heavily energized to unseat Kean; the fact that five candidates have already raised more than $100,000 a year out from the primary, and one of them is closing in on a million, is the type of fundraising energy that harkens back to the 2018 blue wave.
CD-8
Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), who has begun to move up in the House Democratic ranks during his second term, raised $225,616 in Q2 and has $432,852 in the bank. The only threat he might face in the deep-blue 8th district is from a primary challenger; as last year’s primary showed, that threat could be a very real one, especially if local party leaders have second thoughts about supporting him.
(An independent opponent, Richard Barilla, didn’t file a Q2 report, though he reported self-funding $5,600 for his campaign during the first quarter of the year.)
CD-9
Facing a competitive general election for the first time in her political career, Rep. Pou kicked her fundraising operation into gear in the second quarter, raising $503,524. She ended the quarter with $779,700 on-hand, a total that will likely continue to grow as she builds up towards the 2026 elections.
That’s… a bit more than Republican Billy Prempeh, who is running against Pou again after losing past battles for the seat in 2020, 2022, and 2024. Despite now vying for a Trump-won district that’s on national Republicans’ radar, Prempeh raised just $1,164 and had a negative cash-on-hand balance at the end of the quarter; he told the New Jersey Globe he’s been dealing with health issues lately and will refocus on fundraising soon.
It’s possible that a newly declared Republican candidate, Clifton Councilwoman Rosie Pino, will prove to be more successful at fundraising, but that won’t be known until the Q3 filing deadline in October.
CD-10
Representing a safely Democratic Newark-based district since a special election last year, Rep. McIver has had little reason to focus on fundraising during her time in Congress. But her indictment on federal assault charges following a scuffle at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center – charges she says are an attempt at political intimidation by the Trump administration – raised her profile dramatically and made her a hero for many Democratic donors.
The result: McIver raised $751,704 during the second quarter, more than every single congressional fundraising quarter she’d ever had before combined; the majority of her total came from small donors who gave less than $200. (No other candidates from either party have reported raising any money in the 10th district, not that it would particularly matter for McIver’s re-election chances.)
The case against McIver is set to go to trial in November, and the congresswoman will be able to dip into her $628,381 campaign account to pay for her legal representation if she wishes.
CD-11
Now the Democratic nominee for governor after a hard-fought primary, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) obviously had other things to focus on this spring besides her dormant congressional campaign. And indeed, she reported raising a grand total of $0 throughout the 2nd quarter, with a tiny $16,479 left in the bank.
Two of the candidates who might try to succeed Sherrill in a House special election if she wins the governor’s office have filed with the FEC: newcomer Anna Lee Williams self-funded $5,000, while Chatham Borough Councilman Justin Strickland has yet to report raising anything.
Most other would-be contenders, though, are keeping their plans quiet for now, since many top Democrats would consider campaigning openly for Sherrill’s seat a distraction from the elections this year. And if Sherrill loses, of course, she could turn around and run for re-election to Congress, making any preparations to succeed her moot.
CD-12
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) raised $104,329 during the second quarter, a total that’s extremely par for the course for the six-term congresswoman, and ended the quarter with $98,943 on-hand.
Fitness studio owner Kyle Little, who announced in June that he’ll take Watson Coleman on in next year’s Democratic primary, filed his Q2 report late; he reported raising $8,987.
U.S. Senate (2030)
Five years and four months out from his first Senate re-election campaign, Senator Andy Kim raised $315,345 in the second quarter and has $989,766 on hand.
This story was updated at 2:54 p.m. on July 21 with information from Kyle Little’s Q2 report, which was filed late.
Once again, click here for a web version of the fundraising tracker.
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