Rep. Tom Malinowski, a freshman Democrat, is fending off a tough challenge by a Republican lawmaker from a well-known New Jersey political family in the state’s 7th Congressional District.
Malinowski won his seat in 2018 after defeating five-term Republican incumbent Rep. Lance Leonard by a 5-point margin. A once-safe Republican district for 38 years, where former Republican Rep. Mike Ferguson defeated his opponent by 15 points in 2004, it became competitive just two years later when he barely eked out a win following election cycle.
Leonard won the seat for the GOP by a wide margin again in 2008, but his leads each election cycle began to dwindle until his ultimate loss in 2018 to Malinowski.
The Cook Political Report rates the 7th District as an R+3 “lean Democratic” district. President Trump lost the district by 1 point in 2016.
New Jersey Republicans now want to reverse this trend and take the seat back through state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., the son of the popular former New Jersey Republican Gov. Tom Kean. The younger Kean has served in the state legislature since 2001. His first attempt at coming to Washington failed, however, when he lost by over 200,000 votes in 2006, a blue wave year, to Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez.
Prior to his first term in Congress, Malinowski headed up the D.C. office of Human Rights Watch. He later went on to work in the Obama administration at the State Department as the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor. He also worked in the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001, when he served as senior director on the National Security Council at the White House.
The race between Malinowski and Kean has grown incredibly intense as the finish is expected to be close. Kean’s fundraising and cash on hand are behind, but they are currently competitive with Malinowski’s, according to Federal Election Commission records.
