Democrat Sue Altman speaking to a 7th District voter in Sparta on Oct. 5, 2024. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
Democratic House candidate Sue Altman was in deeply Republican Sussex County recently, praising Chris Christie of all people.
Altman, who hopes to unseat Rep. Tom Kean Jr. next month, said she is not a Christie fan but appreciated the numerous town halls the Republican former governor hosted where he took questions from — and often sparred with — audience members.
“I respected the fact that he showed up,” Altman told a group of about 60 mostly friendly voters gathered in Sparta’s ambulance squad headquarters. “I respected that he would fill a room like this and he would stand and he would have a dialogue with people in the community, whether he agreed with them or not.”
Kean, she added, “doesn’t do that.”
During Altman’s quest to win back the 7th Congressional District for Democrats, she has pilloried Kean for his support of Donald Trump, for voting against a bill codifying abortion protections as a New Jersey lawmaker, and for being a “blank slate” with no clear policy views.
But another regular refrain for Altman on the campaign trail: Kean is an absentee congressman who doesn’t come home to face his constituents in any meaningful way.
“He’s not listening to us, he’s listening to the national Republican Party,” Altman told the voters in Sparta.
The Sussex meet-up was one of a handful of town halls Altman has hosted as she runs to defeat the one-term incumbent (the final one is Wednesday in Rahway).
Kean and his allies dispute Altman’s contention that he doesn’t meet with 7th District voters. The congressman told me he holds telephone town halls — he said anyone, including press, can phone in — and meets with constituents at their invitation at senior and veterans homes across the district.
They prefer having him come to them, as opposed to him announcing an in-person town hall and asking that they come to him, Kean said.
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-07) disputes his Democratic challenger’s contention that he is not available to his constituents. (Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)
“The most important thing that I can do in this job is to listen to my constituents, to listen to their needs, to their concerns and do it in a way that makes it the easiest that I can for my constituents to interact with me,” he said. “This is the best way to do so.”
Kean also denied that he takes orders from the national Republican Party instead of 7th District residents. He noted that he co-sponsored a bipartisan 2023 bill intended to keep the government open, appeared at the White House when President Biden signed a bill he co-sponsored that reauthorized federal grants for first responders, and won federal funds for projects all over his district.
“I’m listening to my constituents and their priorities,” he said.
Kean’s allies say it’s Altman who is out of touch with the 7th District. State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Union) was Kean’s running mate for decades when Kean had Bramnick’s job in the state Senate.
“Tom would not have won the last 25 years in office if he wasn’t responding to people,” Bramnick told me. “I think his record of winning indicates that people are pretty happy with him.”
Altman scoffed at the idea that telephone town halls are equivalent to the kind of road trip around the 7th that she is making.
“Do you think that’s the same as this? You’ve got to look people in the eye,” she said.
Altman has an uphill climb in her race to defeat Kean. He has the advantages of incumbency, a last name remembered fondly by countless New Jerseyans because of his dad’s two terms as governor, and a district drawn (by Democrats!) quite literally to benefit the GOP.
Still, it wasn’t too long ago that progressive activists ended a Republican incumbent’s career by tarring him as too afraid to host town hall meetings with voters. In 2018, Rodney Frelinghuysen, a 12-term congressman representing the 11th District, opted not to seek reelection after a group called NJ 11th for Change attacked him for not meeting with constituents. Rep. Mikie Sherrill flipped that seat to the Democratic column that November (she’s seeking a fourth term next month).
Lizzie Foley, who helped found NJ 11th for Change, said she’s not sure that particular brand of lightning will strike twice, though she agrees with Altman that Kean “dodges his constituents.”
“The big difference between Rodney Frelinghuysen’s race with Mikie Sherrill and Tom Kean’s race with Sue Altman is that everything with Frelinghuysen was that Trump was president and people felt like the danger from certain issues was immediate,” she said. “With Biden as president, Tom Kean is less of a threat and more of a vague obstruction to Biden’s agenda.”
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