With less than three weeks before Election Day, a second publication that tracks U.S. House races has given former state Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean Jr. a slight edge over Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski in the heavily competitive 7th Congressional District.
Inside Elections said that economic concerns have risen in the closing weeks of the midterm elections, offsetting a burst of support for Democrats after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June and ended the 49-year-old constitutional right to abortion.
“Certainly, Democrats felt better two months ago than they do now,” said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst with the publication. “There’s been a slight uptick in gas prices again. The focus has turned back toward economic issues, which voters seem to hold more against Democrats.”
The Cook Political Report has listed Kean as a slight favorite ever since the 7th District lines were redrawn to make the district more Republican after .Malinowski defeated Kean, the son of former Gov. Tom Kean, by just 1 percentage point in 2020. But the district was redrawn after the 2020 census to be less friendly to the incumbent.
The independent restricting commission made the new lines of the state’s 11 other congressional districts more friendly to the lawmakers now occupying those seats. As a result, neither Inside Elections nor Cook consider any of the other races competitive.
Another factor leading to Kean’s advantage was the barrage of negative advertising directed against Malinowski by Republican-leaning outside groups, Rubashkin said.
“Malinowski has been beaten up on TV,” Rubashkin said. “He has not gotten a lot of outside support. Clearly the Republican apparatus has mobilized in a major way to beat him. That probably is taking a little bit of a toll against him.”
Through Friday, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republicans’ super political action committee, spent $2.7 million on advertising and the National Republican Congressional Committee added $690,721, according to the research group OpenSecrets.
The GOP outside ads went after Malinowski for failing to timely report stock trades, as required by federal law. The issue rests with the House Ethics Committee after the independent Office of Congressional Ethics confirmed Malinowski did not report the trades on time but also that an independent broker bought and sold the securities without the congressman’s input or knowledge.
“Tom Malinowski violated the public trust when he broke the law designed to stop members of Congress from insider trading and earned himself a bipartisan ethics investigation,” Kean spokesman Harrison Neely said. “People want a representative they can trust. That’s why they’re supporting Tom Kean Jr.”
Malinowski campaign spokeswoman Naree Ketudat declined to comment.
On the Democratic side, the House Democrats’ super PAC, the House Majority PAC, spent just $762,920 while contributing $500,000 to the pro-Malinowski Moderate Party Independent Fund. The Democratic Congressional Committee did not run any ads.
But as if on cue, the House Majority PAC announced Friday it was launching a new ad campaign on behalf of Malinowski, attacking Kean for his opposition to abortion rights.
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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @JDSalant.