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Rebecca Bennett flips NJ Republican House seat for Democrats
By
Mike Hayes
and
Karen Yi
Published Nov 3, 2026 at 9:51 p.m. ET
Modified Nov 3, 2026 at 10:35 p.m. ET
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Aristide Economopoulos for Gothamist
By
Mike Hayes
and
Karen Yi
Published Nov 3, 2026 at 9:51 p.m. ET
Modified Nov 3, 2026 at 10:35 p.m. ET
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Newcomer Democrat Rebecca Bennett has defeated two-term incumbent Republican Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District.
The Associated Press called the race for Bennett at 9:48 p.m. Bennett won nearly 60% of the vote, with 77% of the votes counted, early results show.
Hundreds of jubilant supporters embraced and cheered the result in the main ballroom at the Bridgewater Manor where she held her election party. Her victory over Kean, the scion of one of the Garden State’s most well-known political families, notches a win for Democrats in a key swing district as they try to win a House majority for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.
“Something remarkable is happening here in New Jersey and across the country. This is the moment we begin to turn the page on the Trump era,” Bennett said to her supporters. She said Kean called her to congratulate her and commit to a peaceful transition of power.
Bennett, 39, entered New Jersey politics as a healthcare industry executive and former Navy helicopter pilot with 15 years of military experience. She overcame a 19,000-voter advantage for Republicans in a district that stretches from New Jersey’s border with Staten Island to the Pennsylvania line. In early voting, Democrats built a sizable 29,000-vote advantage heading into Election Day, which proved insurmountable for Kean and the GOP.
Kean barred members of the press from his election-night campaign event in Basking Ridge. Attendees struck a somber tone as they entered the Olde Mill Inn, where Kean has previously held victory parties.
His loss comes after a difficult year for the Republican, who had an extended, initially unexplained absence from Congress. He ultimately revealed that he was being treated for depression.
New Jersey Republican Rep. Tom Kean, Jr.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Bennett ran as a centrist, much like her fellow Democrat Gov. Mikie Sherrill, also a former Navy helicopter pilot, focusing less on social issues and more on affordability concerns like the rising costs of gas, groceries, healthcare, and childcare.
"It is not okay, in the richest country in the world, to have working people struggling so hard,” Sherrill said during Bennett’s election night party. “You wanted somebody who was going to find a way, or make one. You wanted a badass. And guys, I'm with you. I'm with you. I love this one. You wanted a Navy helicopter pilot."
Like Sherrill, Bennett proved a formidable fundraiser, raising north of $8 million during her primary and general election campaigns. Still, it paled in comparison to an $18 million war chest that Kean and the GOP deployed in the closing weeks of the campaign, outspending Democrats by a roughly 3-to-1 margin on broadcast and digital advertising.
However, several prominent GOP groups pulled funding for Kean as polling showed he was less likely to be re-elected, according to the New York Times.
When Bennett takes the oath of office in January, she’ll become just the second Democrat and second woman since 1980 to represent the district.
"There's a tsunami of blue, and it's all because of you,” state Democratic party chair LeRoy Jones told supporters at Bennett's campaign event. “ The people have spoken, and they've said yes to humanity and no to confusion. No to Donald Trump, yes to Rebecca Bennett.”
Bennett’s rise
Bennett officially launched her campaign in early February 2025. She entered a crowded primary with 10 other contenders. Seven candidates dropped out prior to the primary election. Bennett ultimately faced off against critical care physician Dr. Tina Shah, childcare entrepreneur Brian Varela and former Biden administration official Michael Roth.
Bennett tacked toward the center compared to her fellow Democrats.
She favored a public option for healthcare over Bernie Sanders' ‘Medicare For All’ approach, which many progressive Democrats support. And she did not support progressives’ calls to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in response to masked agents seizing people on the streets of New Jersey, advocating instead for reform.
She also took a more moderate approach on Israel’s war in Gaza, refusing to call the conflict a genocide like many left-wing Democrats in the state and around the country have done.
At the same time, Bennett shared positions on some issues that are nearly uniformly supported by progressive and moderate Democrats alike. She campaigned aggressively on overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that allows corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds to support political candidates. She also repeatedly called for reversing tax cuts in Trump's 2025 tax and spending bill for the wealthy and corporations.
Bennett notched a convincing win in the four-way primary contest that gave her momentum going into the general election against Kean. She received more than 45% of the primary vote. Shah, the next closest competitor, got just 20%.
Bennett stuck to her moderate positions in her race against Kean to pull independent and moderate Republican voters to her side.
“ When we look back on tonight, and more importantly, when our kids look back on tonight, they'll see that all of our problems have not been solved with one election,” Bennett said Tuesday night.
“But they'll also see that we never stopped trying. We rejected the politics of division and hate. We stood up to the people that wanted us to see our neighbors as enemies, not as friends, refused to give up on this country that we love, and decided it's time for a new generation of leadership because we will never stop trying to leave this country better off than we found it.”
Kean’s campaign troubles
Kean won easily in his last contest for the seat. In 2024, he dispatched Democrat Sue Altman by more than five points, a sizable improvement on his 2022 win over Tom Malinowski.
His 2024 showing also more than doubled Trump’s own margin of victory in the district that year, with the president carrying it by about 2 points.
An empty event room at Kean's election night party after he lost the race and attendees abandoned the gathering.
David Brand
Kean entered the 2026 race with more than $3 million in his campaign coffers, plus enviable name recognition. Kean is the son of Tom Kean, Sr., a popular, two-term New Jersey governor in the 1980s.
Before his election to Congress, Kean, Jr. served for more than two decades in the state legislature. He can trace his American and New Jersey lineage back to 1776 through many politically involved ancestors.
Well before Bennett won the primary, Democrats had begun raising the possibility of flipping the seat in 2026. Sherrill had a strong turnout in the district as a gubernatorial candidate in 2025, carrying it by about two points on her way to an easy 15-point statewide win over Republican Jack Ciattarelli. In early 2026, the national party organization, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, identified the 7th District as one of the party’s top-10 targets going into the midterms.
But Kean’s personal challenges may have been his most insurmountable hurdle in this year’s contest. He went missing from Congress in March with little word from him or his staff beyond a vague explanation that he was dealing with health issues. He finally returned after a 116-day absence, during which he missed over 100 votes. In a short speech from the Capitol in Washington, Kean said he had been hospitalized for depression.
When he returned to the campaign trail in July, Kean continued to face questions over his absence. But the embattled representative and his campaign staff repeatedly declined interviews, rebuffed calls to host public town hall meetings and blocked media from attending campaign events.
Bennett avoided attacking Kean over his absence. Instead, she attacked him over his numerous and lucrative stock trades while in office, sizable corporate donations to his campaign, his lack of engagement with a controversial White House effort to open an ICE detention center in the district, and Kean’s support for Trump’s overall agenda.
During his time in office, Kean fashioned himself as a moderate Republican. He took a moderate stance on issues like raising the limit on state and local tax deductions, protecting New Jersey’s environmentally sensitive spaces like rivers and wetlands and promoting an “all of the above” energy generation approach that includes wind and solar power. But his record also shows he’s voted with Trump 100% of the time.
Some of Kean’s fellow New Jersey Republicans encouraged him to break with Trump as both politicians slumped in the polls. Trump’s favorability rating in New Jersey amongst likely voters hit a record low of 29% in the lead-up to the midterm elections. Kean slumped by five points against Bennett in September and the Cook Political Report shifted its forecast of the race to favor the Democrat.
But he was reluctant to criticize Trump’s far-right agenda and instead defended the president on issues like the Iran war, tariffs and Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which delivered big cuts to housing, healthcare and food programs in New Jersey.
Altman, Kean’s former Democratic challenger in 2024, said Tuesday’s election was “a referendum on Trump.”
“People are reacting rationally,” she said, ”I hope tonight this district, but all around the country, there’ll be a resounding referendum against Trump, all that he stands for.”
Dick Kamin, a former Morris County executive, said Kean thanked each of his campaign staffers at his campaign event Tuesday night.
“It wasn't a concession speech,” Kamin said, adding that he hoped Kean would be back for a rematch. “We'll see him in two years.”
Other New Jersey races
Democratic Rep. Analilia Mejia defeated Republican challenger Joe Hathaway in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District. The victory earns Mejia her first full term in Congress. The far-left progressive defeated Hathaway in April in a special election to serve out Gov. Sherrill’s term after she vacated the seat.
Democratic Rep. Analilia Mejia
Analilia Mejia for New Jersey
Another progressive Democrat, Dr. Adam Hamawy, easily defeated Republican Gregg Mele and Independent candidate Winston Jordan in a contest to replace longtime Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman in the 12th District.
Both Mejia and Hamawy ran on platforms featuring a host of progressive positions, including abolishing ICE, proclaiming Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide, and supporting Sanders’ ‘Medicare for All’ healthcare plan.
Democrat Nellie Pou was also re-elected in New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District. Her win suggests Democrats are building more support among Latino voters who gravitated toward Trump in 2024.
Sen. Cory Booker cruised to victory on Election Night. He won election to a fourth term, counting the partial term he first won in 2013 to replace Frank Lautenberg, who died in office that year.
David Brand and Michael Sol Warren contributed reporting. This is a developing story and may be updated.
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new jersey
Mike Hayes
Mike Hayes covers equity and access to opportunity in New Jersey. He joined WNYC and Gothamist in 2023. Before that, he worked as a freelance journalist writing about policing and criminal justice. He has written for ProPublica, CNN, HuffPost, BuzzFeed News and The Appeal. He is also the author of the book, “The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform.” In 2019, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
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Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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