In pivotal New Jersey congressional race, Kean Jr. eschews local press

Tom Moran, the editorial page editor for New Jersey’s largest newspaper, said it hit him like a “sucker punch.”

Former Republican Gov. Tom Kean, generally considered the most revered living figure in New Jersey politics, slammed the veteran Star-Ledger columnist in an interview with NJ Spotlight News after his son, Tom Kean Jr., publicly refused to sit down with the newspaper's editorial board.

“Tom Moran has put things in the paper that are inaccurate, unfair, and he’s never been given a chance to answer those things. If it happens again and again and again, eventually you just give up,” the 87-year-old elder statesman said.

Kean Jr. is a Republican running for Congress against two-term Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski in New Jersey's 7th District, a part of the state dominated by upper middle class suburbs. He challenged Malinowski in 2020 and lost by just 1 point. Now, after the district got slightly more Republican-friendly after redistricting, and as Malinowski faces a review by the House Committee on Ethics over late-reporting of stock trades, Kean Jr. is considered the favorite to flip the seat.

The race, which has attracted millions in outside spending and is being watched nationally, is considered pivotal as Democrats try to avoid a midterm red wave and Republicans look to regain control of Congress.

Kean Jr., who served 19 years in the New Jersey Senate, including 14 years as the chamber's minority leader, has avoided most interview requests from the local press and has not given advance notice of his public appearances, banking instead on his famous name and the local media’s decreased relevance amid shrinking newspaper circulations and declining TV news viewership.

While Republicans running further to the right more often eschew the traditional media, focusing almost exclusively on appearances intended to gin up the party base, Kean Jr. has been using the tactic as a way to avoid alienating both the GOP base whose votes he’ll need in November as well as suburban swing voters — mainly women who pulled away from the GOP in the Trump era and support abortion rights.

In his TV interview, the elder Kean didn’t specify any inaccuracies by Moran, and Moran disputed the claim he didn’t reach out to Kean Jr., digging up dozens of emails asking the candidate for comment. Moran, however, has been aggressive in calling out Kean Jr.’s reticence on former President Donald Trump and Trump's lies in his effort to overturn the 2020 election.

“I think he’s a deer in the headlights when it comes to all things Trump. He on one hand wants to appeal to conservatives but on the other hand doesn’t want moderates to know how close he is to Trump, so that’s impossible to bridge,” Moran said in a phone interview. “I think it’s also about abortion.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year overturning Roe v. Wade, Democrats across the country have made abortion rights a campaign issue, hoping to galvanize suburban voters and fend off the threat of a GOP landslide in November. Republicans running in swing districts, like New Jersey's 7th District, have tried to avoid the issue, focusing instead on the economy and crime.

Just before the June primary, when Kean Jr. faced three challengers running to his right, the New Jersey Republican State Committee sent voters a mailer with a large picture of Trump and, above a much smaller photo of Kean Jr., that said “Tom Kean Jr. supports the Trump agenda.” Around the same time, the candidate's campaign website included a splash page — inaccessible from the rest of the website — that included language that made Kean Jr. sound anti-abortion.

“Tom is a fierce defender of the sanctity of life, fighting every step of the way to protect the unborn from egregious abortion laws proposed in New Jersey, and will continue to do so in Congress,” the website states.

Kean Jr.'s campaign did not make him available for an interview for this article. His campaign consultant, Harrison Neely, has tweeted frustration with the press corps for focusing on abortion and Trump when polls show inflation is a top concern among voters.

“Let’s play a little game called ‘How many press inquiries has @KeanForCongress received on inflation/economy or crime the past 30 days?’” Neely tweeted. “If you guessed ‘0’ you are correct!”

"The only candidate with something to hide in this race is Tom Malinowski, which is why he finds himself under an ethics investigation," Neely said in a follow-up email. "Tom Kean Jr. is running a campaign going directly to voters on the issues they care about most."

Kean Jr. has not issued a detailed plan for combating inflation. Asked at a recent candidates forum sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties what he would do to combat inflation, he called for reducing government spending and increasing energy independence, and he criticized Malinowski’s votes in favor of pandemic-era spending he said helped spike inflation.

Malinowski said in a phone interview that he believes the Inflation Reduction Act, while not “dramatic,” will help combat inflation by reducing prescription drug prices, capping health insurance costs and “accelerating the transition” to clean energy, among other things. He also said increasing immigration work visas would help by alleviating the labor shortage.

Kean Jr.’s unease in answering questions on abortion was on display at the candidates forum when, in response to a question, he said: “I support a woman’s right to choose,” but emphasized “reasonable restrictions — those include life and physical health and mental health of the mother and the baby, rape and incest, for example, with reasonable length of time to make a decision.”

“Do you support a woman's right to choose or not?” an audience member asked.

“I just did,” Kean Jr. responded.

The campaign later clarified that he supports abortion until 20 weeks into the pregnancy. In one of his last votes as a member of the New Jersey Legislature, Kean Jr. opposed a bill that would codify abortion rights into state law because, he said, it did not include restrictions against abortions late in pregnancy.

Malinowski, who spoke at the event before Kean Jr., said the candidates got the questions in advance.

“He knew exactly what was coming and it certainly looked as if he had practiced the question, because he delivered exactly the same answer twice at different points in the session. And it still didn’t make any sense,” Malinowski said in a phone interview.

Malinowski stressed that he’s talked to many reporters, including local news outlets and to Fox News. He also holds town halls throughout the district. Footage from a recent event held with veterans, became fodder for his opponents when some attendees were critical of Malinowski and House Democrats.

“That one pissed me off because this was a VFW hall. Kean would never show up himself to take two hours of questions from veterans, but he sends his tracker and posts out-of-context footage, not just of me but of the veterans who didn’t know it was going to be used that way,” Malinowski said.

Stefanie Murray, director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, said local reporters still have an important role to play in informing voters on the positions of those running for federal office, even if there are fewer of them than before.

“It’s such a shame and it’s so sad to see any politician see that a strategy of avoiding the press is a winning strategy in the end," she said. "It may be in the political interest, or so he thinks, but it’s really not in the public interest at all."