Greg Vartan launches second campaign for 7th congressional district

Greg Vartan, the chairman of the Summit Democrats and a former local councilman, ran for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district briefly in 2024, but the timing wasn’t right for him and he dropped out long before the primary. Now, as Democrats gear up to try to reclaim the House in 2026, Vartan’s back for another round.

Vartan announced today that he will run once again against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), a two-term Republican who has foiled past Democratic attempts to defeat him in his competitive suburban district. As someone who grew up in Summit, spent a decade as a volunteer EMT, and represented his neighbors on the Summit Common Council for six years, Vartan said that he has the right profile to be the Democrat who finally takes Kean down.

“I was the first in my family to graduate from college; I’ve worked hard since I was a teenager to be able to afford to live here and to stay here; I have student loans, and the price of groceries and gas and rent really really matter to me,” Vartan said. “I understand the issues facing everyday people in this district, and I have a record of delivering results for them in a way that I just don’t think Tom Kean Jr. has in his many, many, many years in elected office.”

The 31-year-old Vartan joins a Democratic primary that already includes one other candidate: Rebecca Bennett, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who now works in the health care industry. Bennett has never run for office before, but if the $125,000 she raised during her first day in the race is anything to go off of, she’s likely to be a very serious contender.

And the two prior Democratic nominees for the 7th district, Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) and Sue Altman, both remain politically active in the district: Malinowski, who lost re-election to Kean 51%-49% in 2022, became chairman of the Hunterdon County Democrats last year, while Altman, whose 2024 bid to unseat Kean fell short 52%-46%, is now Senator Andy Kim’s state director. Neither have commented yet on what their plans may be for the 2026 cycle.

But Vartan (who will officially launch his campaign later today, though his website and fundraising page have been online for more than a week) argues that he has what it takes to win both a Democratic primary and a general election against Kean. Unlike in 2024, he’s getting a very early start – the 2026 primary is still 16 months away – and he says he’ll use every minute of it to build connections across the district.

“In order to win, I think you need to be talking to voters constantly,” he said. “The goal is to connect with people one-on-one – at the doors, on the phone, in living rooms, union halls, houses of worship – and prove to the people of the district, in as small a group or as big a group as I can, that I am the right person for this job.”

Vartan, who has spent his professional life working in sales, first ran for office in 2016, when he was 23 years old. That campaign ended in heartbreak: he lost his race for the 2nd Ward of the Summit Common Council by eight votes, 2,578 to 2,570.

Undeterred, Vartan tried again in 2018, to much greater success. With Donald Trump vastly unpopular in well-off suburbs like Summit, local Republicans fell victim to a huge Democratic wave, and Vartan flipped an open Republican-held council seat 64% to 36%. (That same night, Malinowski unseated Rep. Leonard Lance with the overwhelming support of Summit voters, handing control of the 7th district to Democrats for the first time in decades.)

Vartan won re-election 55%-45% in 2021 and was elected council president in 2023, though he lost that title a year later after Republicans unexpectedly flipped control of the council. In November 2023, he launched a campaign for Congress, but it was to be short-lived; by the time he entered the race, Altman and former State Department official Jason Blazakis had already been running and raising money for months, and Vartan was never able to find an opening. He dropped out in January 2024 having only raised around $87,000, and endorsed Altman shortly afterwards.

That campaign may not have won Vartan a seat in Congress, but it did increase his name recognition outside of Summit; some suspected he would try to run for State Assembly this year in the Republican-held 21st district, though he evidently decided against doing so. Last year, Vartan was elected as the Summit Democratic chairman but didn’t seek a third term on the council, and fellow Democrat Claire Toth won his open seat.

Unlike his first House campaign, Vartan is now running under the shadow of a Trump administration, one which has already begun working to dismantle broad swaths of the federal government. Trump won the 7th district in 2024, but only narrowly – he carried it 49% to 48% four years after Joe Biden won it 51% to 47% – and Vartan said he believes North and Central Jerseyans will turn on Trump like they did in 2018.

“This administration is not working on lowering costs, and I believe its policies will have the opposite effect on the economy,” Vartan said. “It will drive inflation, it will shrink opportunities, and it will only work, really, for extremely wealthy people like Elon Musk. I don’t think it’s going to work for the everyday person who’s striving to make it in this district, who’s striving to own their first home in this district, who’s striving to stay after retirement in this district; I don’t think it’s going to work for those folks, and I think they’re going to see that.”

And Vartan argued that Kean – whose instinct in Washington is to avoid making waves, at least publicly – won’t be the check on the Trump administration that his constituents want him to be.

“Just like it was in his first term, Tom Kean Jr. is essentially along for the ride with whatever his party leaders want,” Vartan said. “He’s not going to break with them and stand up when we need him to. He doesn’t host town halls; he doesn’t answer his emails or phone calls; and he doesn’t even acknowledge reporters if they’re standing in the same elevator as him.”

If he’s elected, Vartan said that he would focus both on stopping the “dangerous and illegal actions” taken by the Trump administration and on fighting for core issues in the 7th district: lowering the cost of living, expanding health care access, and improving education and transportation.

Either Vartan or Bennett would face a tough fight against Kean, a proven vote-getter for decades in the Central Jersey suburbs and an early favorite for re-election, per the Cook Political Report. Not only will they have to convince voters that they’re the right Democratic candidate for the seat, they’ll also have to get outside groups to invest time and money in the cost-intensive 7th district, something that national Democrats were hesitant to do in both 2022 and 2024.

But the fact that Vartan and Bennett are already in the race in February 2025 is a sign of early Democratic energy in the district. For comparison, Altman didn’t launch her 2024 campaign until May 2023, and Malinowski’s initial 2018 House campaign didn’t kick off until October 2017.

Their early entries give both candidates, and anyone else who may join them, plenty of time to make their case to voters. After nearly a decade in the public eye (despite not yet being old enough to be elected president), Vartan says his pitch is a good one.

“You have to have similar experiences and backgrounds to the people whose votes you’re asking for, so that you can assure them, in a way that feels authentic, that you understand the issues that they’re facing – you’re facing those issues too,” Vartan said. “And I’ve been doing that since I entered the political arena.”