When Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) runs for re-election next year, he’ll be doing so in a district that voted – narrowly – for a Democrat in this year’s gubernatorial election.
With nearly all of the vote counted, Democratic Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill leads vanquished Republican Jack Ciattarelli by a one-point margin, 50.2% to 49.1%, in the 7th congressional district. Those numbers could still shift prior to certification, but it’s very unlikely they’ll shift enough to give Ciattarelli the 4,000-vote margin he’d need to retake the lead in the district, which covers a suburban and largely well-off section of North and Central Jersey.
For the eight Democrats running to unseat Kean next year, the results are good news, especially since the district was carried by Donald Trump in 2024. Many of those Democrats have already amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors who believe Kean can be defeated, and Sherrill’s victory will only further bolster their case.
When the modern incarnation of the 7th district was drawn in 2021, it was intended to be a GOP-leaning district that Democrats could still win under the right circumstances. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes), who had won a bluer version of the district in 2018, failed to hold on under its new lines in 2022, and Democrat Sue Altman fell short against Kean in 2024 – but neither of those losses convinced Democrats that the district was out of reach.
On a presidential level, the historically Republican district has tended to swing back and forth: its current lines voted for Donald Trump by nearly six points in 2016, Joe Biden by nearly four points in 2020, and Trump again by one point in 2024. Biden’s win in 2020 remains the Democratic high-water mark in modern history.
Sherrill’s win thus marks a two-point overperformance compared to Kamala Harris in 2024, much smaller than the statewide Democratic swing of eight points. Republicans looking for a silver lining to Tuesday’s election results could point to that: the 7th district, likely to host New Jersey’s most important race of 2026, was more resistant to Democratic trends than the rest of the state.
On the other hand, the 7th district has tended to be more conservative in state-level elections, making Sherrill’s win seem more auspicious for Democrats.
In 2021, Ciattarelli beat Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy by a whopping 12-point margin in the district, returning its suburban voters to their GOP roots after Biden’s success a year earlier. That led many people to pre-write Malinowski’s political obituary for the next year, but the congressman was able to keep the race against Kean (a former state senator) competitive, and he only lost by around three points.
And in 2017, when Murphy won a landslide victory over GOP Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno, he still lost the old incarnation of the 7th district (which was more Democratic-leaning than the current version) by six points. A year later, Malinowski unseated Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton) by five points.
If those state-federal swings are replicated next year, it would mean Kean is on track to lose re-election to one of his Democratic challengers by double digits. At this point, no one thinks that’s going to happen, but it does put into perspective how unusual it is that Sherrill was able to carry the district, especially since Ciattarelli is from the district and represented many of its residents in the State Assembly for six years. (Ciattarelli’s hometown, Raritan Borough, voted for Sherrill by five points after supporting Ciattarelli by 15 points four years ago.)
Sherrill, it’s worth noting, has some 7th district ties of her own. Her 11th congressional district is right next door and is demographically similar in many ways; her first two terms in Congress involved representing a handful of towns, like Sparta and Mendham, that have since been moved into the 7th district. It’s possible that Sherrill was a uniquely strong fit for the district, and that Democrats won’t be able to replicate her success – a 14-point statewide win and victories in all of the state’s swing counties – under whatever next year’s political climate will be.
But compared to last year’s presidential race, Sherrill actually lost ground in Mendham, which is full of her old constituents, as well as in the other 7th district that rank among the state’s wealthiest; the city of Summit, one of the district’s Democratic hubs, was nine points redder this year than last year. That’s a trend that was replicated around the state: wealthy areas were the least likely to shift towards Sherrill.
Instead, Sherrill did best, relative to Kamala Harris, among minority and middle-class voters. The parts of the 7th district that fit that bill – rural Warren and Sussex Counties, less-wealthy Morris towns like Mine Hill and Wharton, the racially diverse cities of Rahway and Linden – all swung substantially towards Sherrill, enough for her to secure a narrow districtwide win.
The current Democratic field consists of physician Tina Shah, U.S. Navy veteran Rebecca Bennett, businessman Brian Varela, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, climate scientist Megan O’Rourke, former Summit Councilman Greg Vartan, criminal justice professor Beth Adubato, and attorney Vale Mendoza.
So far, Shah, Bennett, and Varela have led the field in fundraising, endorsements, or both. And thanks to Sherrill’s win, Bennett may have an additional argument to make for her campaign: she, too, is a former Navy helicopter pilot who moved to New Jersey after her service ended.
Kean is one of three Republicans in the New Jersey delegation; the other two, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester), hold much redder districts. Ciattarelli won Smith’s 4th district in a landslide, and carried Van Drew’s 2nd district by a smaller single-digit margin.
Republicans also have hopes of flipping Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon)’s 9th district, but last week’s gubernatorial results show how difficult that will be: Sherrill carried the Paterson-based district, which used to be solidly Democratic but unexpectedly voted for Trump last year, by a 59%-40% margin.
