Trying to cover the re-election campaign of Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey is a bit like reading the children’s book “Where’s Waldo?”
Numerous postings on Facebook from the Kean campaign show events in the state’s 7th Congressional District, but only after those appearances have been held. His campaign sends out press releases criticizing his Democratic challenger Sue Altman, but none mention any of Kean’s upcoming public events.
All queries to the campaign go unanswered, including one for this story. Multiple reporters from other outlets said this has also happened to them.
“Back about a month ago, I emailed both campaigns and said, ‘Let me know of the public appearances the candidates are making,'” reporter Fred Snowflack of political news site Insider NJ said. Snowflack has covered local politics in the district for more than 30 years. “Sue Altman’s team got back to me right away,” he noted. “And of course, I never heard anything from Tom Kean, which is par for the course.”
The silent treatment may be an effective strategy, especially because Kean has high name recognition in his district. He served in the state Legislature for 21 years and is the son and namesake of a popular former governor.
“It hasn’t hurt him because he maintains a high level of visibility and accessibility to his constituents,” Republican strategist Jeanette Hoffman said. “I think in this day and age, when politicians can communicate directly to voters via social media, it doesn’t hurt them as much to not do traditional interviews with reporters.”
In 2022, Kean beat the incumbent Democrat, Tom Malinowski, and hid from reporters during that campaign.
“He doesn’t have, to put it very kindly, a lot of mental or verbal acuity in those situations,” Malinowski told Gothamist. “And I think that’s really what they are trying to hide from voters here, that this is somebody who isn’t capable of doing one of the most basic things that an elected representative is supposed to do.”
Kean has the advantage of a gerrymandered district that received an influx of 30,000 Republicans after the boundaries were redrawn in 2021.
“He also still carries some advantage from being the son of Tom Kean Sr., who is still one of the most respected politicians on both sides of the aisle in modern New Jersey history,” Malinowski added.
A recent event in a retirement community backfired for Kean and went viral on social media, even though the press was not invited. An audience member grilled the representative about whether he supported Project 2025, the conservative playbook for Trump’s potential second term.
When Kean told the audience he hadn’t read the plan, the questioner, an older woman, persisted. “You’ve never read it?” she asked. “No,” Kean replied. “Why not?” the woman asked. “This is a manifesto, an outline of the man who’s the candidate for your party for president. And you’re not interested in the least in what he is?”
Altman’s campaign promoted the exchange in a TikTok video watched by more than 500,000 people.
After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Democratic activists in the district began organizing to apply pressure on the incumbent Republican, Leonard Lance, to break with the new president. Several organizations formed and called on Lance to hold town hall meetings or meet with them.
“So I feel like Leonard Lance tried,” Maggie Savoca of the progressive group OneNJ7 said. “I will say that. Where I don’t think Tom Kane tries at all.”
During the highly charged 2018 campaign, Lance held a town hall in a large auditorium at Raritan Valley Community College and was essentially booed by more than 1,000 people.
Kean has avoided such encounters. He has never held a public town hall, and activists complain that they can’t ask their questions on telephone town halls. His predecessor, Malinowski, held more than 100 in-person town halls.
“He has tied his success to the coattails of the MAGA agenda, and when you do hear him speak, he’s towing the party line,” said Savoca. “So he’s bellying up to the MAGA bar.”
