Tom Kean Jr. to Run for New Jersey’s Seventh Seat to Unseat Democrat Tom Malinowski

Thomas Kean Jr., the New Jersey State Senate Republican minority leader, will reportedly announce his candidacy for New Jersey’s seventh congressional district.

Kean will announce his campaign to unseat Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) on July 14. He ran during the 2020 congressional elections and came close to beating the New Jersey Democrat.

The seventh district serves as a prime target for Republicans to flip during the 2022 midterm elections; Malinowski beat Kean in 2020 by only 1.2 percent. Hillary Clinton won the district by one percent in 2016, and Republicans have traditionally held it district for decades.

Malinowski is considered one of the most vulnerable House Democrats and could be one of five Republicans need to oust to regain the House majority.

Malinowski, a two-term lawmaker, faces a “rough” second term after he failed to disclose more than 100 stock trades, which led to a complaint with the House Ethics Committee.

Malinowski also admitted during a town hall that Biden’s infrastructure push focuses mostly on items unrelated to building roads, bridges, and tunnels. Instead, he has urged the Biden administration to stuff the infrastructure bill with climate change provisions that could ax up to 142,000 New Jersey jobs.

He said, “On top of that, what I’m really pushing hard for is an investment that will help America lead the world in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.”

Malinowski subsequently doubled down on his pledge to include climate change carve outs in the infrastructure proposal.

The “scandal-ridden” Democrat has claimed that “police officers should be honored, supported, and funded … regardless of politics;” however, Malinowski raked in tens of thousands of dollars from and has been endorsed by several groups that want to “defund the police.”