Meet Sue Altman
Eager to make Josh Gottheimer’s, Mikie Sherrill’s and Andy Kim’s districts bluer, and eager to end Tom Malinowski’s tenure in Congress, the New Jersey, Democratic Machine-dominated state legislature redraw NJ-07 in such a way that the partisan lean went from D+4 to R+3. (Gottheimer’s went from even to D+7; Sherrill’s went from D+1 to D+11; and Kim’s went from R+5 to D+9). The 7th, one of the wealthiest districts in the country, now includes all of Hunterdon and Warren counties and parts of Morris, Somerset, Sussex and Union counties. The Republicans noticed and put up the son of former NJ governor Tom Kean, hoping voters would remember the father’s mainstream conservative stances and overlook Jr’s extremism. They did and in 2022 Kean strong showing in Warren, Sussex, Morris and Hunterdon trump Malinowski’s win in Union. Somerset County, which Malinowski needed to win, was a virtual tie allowing Kean to come out ahead 159,392 (51.4%) to 150,701 (48.6%). Biden had won the district under the new boundaries 51.1% to 47.3%.
Today NJ-07 is one of the must-flip districts if the Democrats are going to take back the House. Bonus: it is one of the only must-flip districts with a bona fide progressive candidate, Sue Altman’s grassroots campaign having frightened off the corrupt corporate conservatives who originally put themselves forward on behalf of the party machine bosses. Altman, who grew up in the district, is now the consensus candidate of the whole party— in some cases because and in others despite the fact she had spent the last decade, as head of the NJ Working Families Party, fighting corruption and the waste of taxpayer dollars in Trenton.
A Columbia and Oxford grad, she was a professional basketball player, school teacher and coach who understands how to fight, how to fight smart and how to win. During her time as a teacher, she stood up to then-Governor Chris Christie in order to protect teachers and fight against cuts to public schools. Her time battling Christie and then the party machines in Trenton have lain the groundwork for the exciting pro-democracy/anti-corruption movement we’re seeing in state right now, highlighted by the Menendez scandal and the overthrow of the county line ballot design. Please consider helping her win this race here.
If she wins, she’ll be one of just two— along with Bonnie Watson Coleman— progressives in the New Jersey delegation. Admired by independent voters who respect that she has held both parties accountable— she is likely to make Junior a one term member of Congress. “Tom Kean, Jr.,” she said, “ran as a moderate but has aligned himself with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. Whether it’s palling around with extremist Speaker Mike Johnson at fundraisers or advancing Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda, Kean is out of step with New Jersey voters. It’s time for him to stop hiding from his constituents and clearly explain why the leaders of his party plan to gut Social Security, privatize Medicare, ban abortion nationwide, outlaw IVF, repeal the ACA, and eliminate the SALT deduction. These policies would devastate hundreds of thousands of families across our state.”
NJ-07 is one of just 17 districts held by a Republican that Biden won in 2020— and the most highly educated district in the country still represented by a Republican. Moderates in the district who thought Junior would be like his father were aghast when he backed Jim Jordan for speaker and when he voted against abortion access for women in the military. An empty suit, he’s been a largely knee-jerk supporter of GOP extremism, enabling the far right, MAGA elements of his own party— a party that wants to ban abortion nationwide, gut Social Security, privatize Medicare, outlaw IVF. repeal ObamaCare…
“If we've learned anything this past year,” said Altman, “it's that Republicans like Tom Kean, Jr. can't be trusted to stand up to the extremists targeting reproductive rights and our fundamental freedoms. We need a fighter, not a MAGA-enabler like Junior.”
Steve Fulop, mayor of Jersey City and the likely next governor of the Garden State, is an Altman booster. “I’ve know Sue for a long time,” he told us last night, “and her race is one of the most important in the country as it is a very winnable seat that can and should turn blue. Sue is a relentless worker, very smart, and will energize the grass roots activists while her opponent, Tom Kean, is the exact opposite of those traits.”
A few months ago, Altman told me that she thinks that “Trumpism persists because we, as Democrats, have failed to convince a sizable portion of the electorate that Democrats stand for something and will stand for their rights and stand for their interests… We need to nominate Democrats who stand for something and… who have a record of work on these issues... The thing that some of the ‘normie Democrats’ are hesitant about, ‘are you too progressive, are you going to alienate the right, what about the moderates?’ So I’ve had to make this case over and over to them that I am someone who stands for something and that outweighs this perception that the mushy middle is where Democrats should go. And that’s a fight, because regular Democrats are conditioned to think that the muddy middle is where we should be as Democrats but one by one, I’m convincing them [in the NJ Democratic Party] that that is not the case.” Here’s one who needed no persuading…