Patricia Campos-Medina, a longtime activist and labor leader who ran for U.S. Senate last year, is endorsing Brian Varela for the Democratic nomination in New Jersey’s 7th congressional district.
The swing district is Campos-Medina’s home – she lives in Hunterdon County – and she said she likes Varela best of the eight Democratic candidates running to unseat two-term Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield).
“Brian Varela represents the new generation of leadership in New Jersey, a people-powered candidate who understands what working families are going through because he has lived it,” Campos-Medina said in a statement. “He is a different kind of dynamic leader our district is looking for, someone who will bring fresh ideas and creative solutions to the district’s problems, stand up to corporate special interests, and put the people first above all else.”
Campos-Medina has been in and around New Jersey politics for years, but her first direct foray into the political arena came last year, when she entered the chaotic race to succeed scandal-tarred Senator Bob Menendez. Her staunchly progressive campaign struggled to gain traction against the eventual frontrunner, then-Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), and she ended up with 16% of the vote statewide, doing best in the state’s Hispanic communities.
Since then, Campos-Medina has become a surrogate for Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), joining her gubernatorial campaign as a senior advisor back when Sherrill was still facing a competitive Democratic primary.
Varela said Campos-Medina’s endorsement underscores his support among “labor, immigrant communities, women, business leaders, progressives, and working-class voters”; Varela himself is the son of Colombian immigrants, and he’s been running one of the more explicitly progressive campaigns in the 7th district field.
Campos-Medina isn’t the first notable local endorsement that Varela has picked up, either. Over the summer, Varela got endorsements from a big group of Democrats in his home of Morris County, including a former county Democratic chairman and five local elected officials, as well as from nearly every local Democratic official in the Hunterdon County borough of Flemington.
