Rep. Tom Malinowski won reelection in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District against Republican state Sen. Thomas Kean, winning 55.3% to 44.7%.
The call was made by the Associated Press with 37% of precincts reporting.
The Cook Political Report rated the 7th District as an R+3 “lean Democratic” district, and Trump lost the district by just 1 point in 2016.
Malinowski won his seat in 2018 after defeating five-term Republican incumbent Rep. Lance Leonard by a 5-point margin. The district was a safe Republican enclave for 38 years, with then-Republican Rep. Mike Ferguson beating his 2004 Democratic opponent. The district became competitive just two years later when Ferguson barely eked out a win amid the Democratic wave, and he retired after that term, succeeded by Lance.
New Jersey Republicans aimed to return the seat to the GOP 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. He last tried to come to Washington, D.C. professionally in 2006, when he challenged and lost to Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who had been appointed to the seat earlier that year. Kean first ran for the House in 2000, coming in second in the Republican primary behind Ferguson.
Before his first term in Congress, Malinowski headed up the office of Human Rights Watch. The New Jersey Democrat moved on to work for the Obama administration at the State Department as the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor. Malinowski also worked in the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001, when he served as a senior director on the National Security Council at the White House.
