| Vulnerable Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr. is in a squeeze.
The New York Times reports that Kean Jr. – whose “re-election fight was never expected to be easy” – has suffered a series of setbacks and self-inflicted wounds over the course of the past few weeks.
Their report cites Kean Jr.’s feckless response to Trump withholding funding for the Gateway project, criticism the congressman has received from local Republicans charging that he failed to advocate for his own community, and the fact that he “was the only member of New Jersey’s House delegation to vote against [a] bipartisan measure” on aviation safety.
Add all these stumbles together, and it’s clear they have “made Kean’s re-election effort in the Seventh Congressional District significantly more complicated.”
Read the New York Times’ take on Kean Jr.’s troubles for yourself:
- Representative Thomas Kean Jr.’s re-election fight was never expected to be easy. A second-term Republican, Kean represents an affluent swing district in New Jersey that backed Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, over her Trump-endorsed opponent by about two points.
- But in the past month, the Trump administration has made Kean’s re-election effort in the Seventh Congressional District significantly more complicated.
- First there was a tug of war over federal funding for a Hudson River train tunnel known as Gateway, which many residents are counting on to help make their unpredictable commutes into New York City more reliable. Then Immigration and Customs Enforcement bought a warehouse in the district to use as a migrant detention center, over objections from Republican leaders, who have blamed the congressman for failing to block it.
- Kean now appears to have been caught in the middle of tension between the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration over a bill designed to make air travel safer, particularly near congested hubs like New York and New Jersey.
- On Tuesday, he was the only member of New Jersey’s House delegation to vote against the bipartisan measure, which would have required planes to carry tracking technology that federal investigators say could have helped avoid a midair collision near Washington last year that killed 67 people. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in December, but the Pentagon pulled its support for the legislation on Monday. The measure failed by one vote.
- […] the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was quick to highlight Kean’s vote, noting that one of the people killed in the crash near Washington grew up in a town adjacent to where Kean lives.
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