Less than an hour after polls closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Rebecca Bennett was declared the Democratic winner in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District primary. As of Wednesday, Bennett had more than 45% of the vote. Bennett secured the nomination over Tina Shah, Brian Varela and Michael Roth.
“I want to win and flip this seat,” Bennett said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “We have to put our best player on the field to take on Tom Kean Jr.”
Bennett said her experience in the military, health care and the private sector have prepared her to unseat Kean. The congressman has been absent from Capitol Hill and the campaign since March due to a medical issue that he has not detailed.
Bennett credits her “robust policy platform” and district-wide campaign, in Central Jersey, for her decisive primary win.
“We have to be for something and we have to solve the problems that we’re all facing in our everyday lives,” Bennett said. “I’m raising my girls in this district and I understand the challenges that families are facing.”
Bennett also addressed criticisms and attacks from Republicans and the other Democratic candidates. A dark money group, Real Change PAC, paid for ads claiming that Bennett was too conservative. The PAC is believed to be working for Republicans.
“Congratulations to the Republican Party for lighting $650,000 on fire,” Bennett said of the group’s spending. “Because we were still able to win very decisively.”
She also responded to attack ads from Shah, who touted Bennett’s former Republican Party membership and accused her of taking thousands of dollars from ICE contractors to fund her campaign. Bennett denies the accusations.
ICE “absolutely need to be held accountable,” she said. “The fact that we have masked unidentified agents that are murdering Americans in broad daylight — they are detaining children, they are deporting military veterans. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”
When asked about calls to close immigrant detention facilities like Delaney Hall in Newark, Bennett veered instead toward broad immigration policy.
“I am focused on what we can do from the federal perspective right now, which is really making sure that ICE is being accountable to the law of the land,” she said.
Bennett and Kean Jr. will face off in the Nov. 3 general election.
We’re in this together.
For a better-informed future.
Support our nonprofit newsroom.
