Kean raises $932k, stockpiles $1.5 million for re-election campaign

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) is New Jersey’s most vulnerable Republican congressman in 2026 – and he’s fundraising like it.

Kean raised $931,676 in the second quarter of 2025, a huge sum that ranks among Kean’s all-time best fundraising quarters, especially given that the election for the 7th congressional district is still nearly a year and a half away. Kean’s campaign account had $1,509,019 stockpiled as of the end of June.

“Thank you to the many people who have continued to step up and support our campaign,” Kean said in a statement. “Over the past couple of months, I helped lead the fight to fully restore the SALT deduction; protect the integrity of vital social programs, like Medicaid, for their intended beneficiaries; and secure our Southern Border. I will continue to advocate for New Jersey each day, and I appreciate the confidence in our campaign.”

As last year’s race for the 7th district showed, Kean will want every dollar he can get as he fights for a third term in Congress. The congressman and his 2024 Democratic opponent, Sue Altman, each raised around $6 million in total, and outside groups flooded millions more into the expensive New York City media market, making for the priciest House campaign in New Jersey history; Kean ultimately won 52% to 46%.

Undeterred by that loss, a new horde of Democrats is seeking to unseat Kean next year, and many of them have already raised quite a bit of money of their own.

Former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, the first Democrat to enter the race, has raised more than $900,000 in the five months she’s been running for the seat; Brian Varela, a businessman who previously ran for a different House seat in 2022, amassed $700,000 during his first quarter in the race, though around half of that came from self-funding.

Two other Democrats, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth and former Summit Councilman Greg Vartan, have not yet announced their own Q2 hauls; Roth raised $175,000 during his first day in the race in April, while Vartan raised $101,000 in his first two months. Yet another Democratic candidate, physician Tina Shah, launched her campaign after the 2nd quarter filing deadline, but she announced that she raised $260,000 in her first 24 hours running.

Kean has no primary challenge of his own to worry about at the moment, and none may be coming thanks to an early endorsement from the Republican Party’s most important man. President Donald Trump gave Kean his “Complete and Total Endorsement” in a social media post this spring, the first time that the president has ever directly backed the congressman.

Kean also stuck with the president in a big way this year by voting for his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a massive legislative package focused on health care and tax policy that Republicans’ narrow majorities pushed through the House and Senate earlier this month; the bill was Trump’s top policy goal of 2025.

Democrats in the 7th district have already begun attacking Kean over his vote, saying that the congressman supported a bill that will slash funding for popular programs like Medicaid and food stamps. Kean and Republicans have hit back that the bill provides tax relief for the 7th district, especially by raising the State and Local Tax deduction cap, while safeguarding Medicaid from “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

On a national level, Democrats have added Kean to their official 2026 target list, all but ensuring that the district will host yet another competitive race next year, as it’s done every cycle since 2018. The district voted for Trump last year by a close 49% to 48% margin; it was held by a Democrat, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes), as recently as 2022, though that was under different district lines.