Democrats plan $4 million ad campaign for Sue Altman in New Jersey

In the final two weeks before Election Day, the House Democrats’ largest super PAC will spend $4 million on television and digital advertising to support Sue Altman, the Democratic candidate in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District.

The House Majority PAC’s (HMP) last-minute investment is the first major investment by a national Democratic body in Altman’s bid to unseat first-time Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R), the son of a popular former House governor in the Garden State.

The group’s decision to step in – backed by a $500,000 contribution from the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union – shows Democrats’ confidence in the standing of their other candidates in neighboring New York, where many of the the country’s most important representatives.

“Sue Altman is proud of her pro-choice record, proud to stand with working families and proud to stand against the hatred and harm of Project 2025,” NJEA President Sean Spiller said in a statement Explanation. “Your opponent is hiding from voters because he knows the Trump agenda is not what voters in CD7 want, but he is too afraid to stand up for it. That’s why we’re proud to work with the House Majority PAC to ensure CD7 elects Sue Altman.”

The House Majority PAC will spend $2 million each of the next two weeks, including $1.8 million on television and $200,000 on digital advertising.

The group’s first 30-second spot focuses on evidence that Kean, a self-described “pro-choice” ad, cannot be trusted to protect abortion rights.

“Tom Kean Jr. spent 23 years in Trenton and D.C. trying to abolish women’s rights,” the ad states. “Kean Jr. voted to punish doctors and refused to protect IVF fertility treatments. Now he supports the extremists who want to ban abortions nationwide.”

The ad also references Kean’s vote for a Republican bill that would criminalize doctors who fail to provide adequate medical care to a viable fetus born after an abortion or attempted abortion, and his refusal to join a bipartisan effort , bringing to a vote a bill to codify protections against in vitro fertilization and his support for the speaker bid of anti-abortion Rep. Jim Jordan (R) of Ohio.

The Altman campaign has also drawn attention to Kean’s use of a secret website in 2022 to present himself to abortion opponents as a “fierce defender of life, fighting at every turn to protect the unborn from the egregious abortion laws that were proposed in New Jersey.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of House Democrats, donated $200,000 to the New Jersey Democratic Party to fund a direct mail program for Altman. The Working Families Party’s independent expenditure division has also spent nearly $500,000 on mail and digital ads supporting Altman.

But their investments were paltry compared to the nearly $3 million that the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republicans’ main super PAC, spent to attack Altman and bolster Kean.

And before HMP’s investment, some progressives had questioned whether Altman, a former chairwoman of the New Jersey chapter of the Working Families Party, was different in South Jersey because of her roots on the left or because of her bad blood with the Democratic political machine was treated.

Altman, who ran as a mainstream reformer and has had impressive fundraising numbers to match, is vying for a seat that President Joe Biden held in 2020 by nearly 4 percentage points. HMP had already invested in a number of districts Biden lost, such as Montana’s 1st Congressional District.

But someone familiar with the thinking of national groups said it took them some time to see Altman’s momentum showing up in the polls and the certainty that the funds wouldn’t be needed to push higher-priority candidates in to support neighboring states. Although New Jersey’s 7th District is in the suburbs, it is still part of New York’s prohibitively expensive media market, so resource considerations are an important part of the equation, the person told HuffPost.

Last Wednesday, a Monmouth University poll was released that showed Kean leading Altman 46% to 44% – well within the margin of error. Those numbers were consistent with a poll funded and commissioned by the DCCC that found her trailing Kean 50% to 48%.

HuffPost asked Altman on Oct. 13 at an event marking the Hindu holiday of Diwali whether she would like outside cavalry to advocate on her behalf.

“It’s not me, it’s them,” Altman said.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. “The next three weeks are going to be very interesting,” she added. “But I know that my allegiance, loyalty and heart definitely lie with NJ-07 and I will never forget where I came from.”

Jonathan Nicholson contributed reporting.