Despite absence, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. holds cash lead over Dem rivals

Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has been absent from Congress since mid-March due to an unspecific health issue, saw his fundraising flatten in the last six weeks, though he still holds a cash lead in the House race for New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District.

Kean, a Republican seeking his third term in November, has raised nearly $4.6 million throughout this cycle, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. But he only raised $167,584 between April 1 and May 13, a fraction of the amount raised by all but one of the Democrats vying to challenge him.

“From any other incumbent in any other competitive race across the country, this would be anemic,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, adding, “Of course we know, in this case, it’s because he was off the grid. He was not raising money during this period.”

Kean’s prior fundraising was still strong, Rasmussen said, and the incumbent had just under $3.4 million banked as of May 13. That meant he had more in reserves than all of his would-be challengers combined.

Four Democrats are vying in the June 2 primary to take on Kean in the fall. Democrats believe winning the 7th District will be key in their push to retake control of the House of Representatives next year. Kean faces no challenger in the GOP primary.

Rebecca Bennett, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, led fundraising on the Democratic side with just over $3 million raised this cycle.

Tinah Shah, a physician, raised more than $2.1 million, and businessman Brian Varela reported bringing in just under $2 million. Michael Roth, a board member of the small business consultancy Next Street, raised about $1.2 million. But those numbers come with a caveat: Significant chunks of those candidates’ fundraising came from their own pocket, and some has already started returning there.

Shah loaned her campaign $650,000, while Roth loaned his $400,000. Varela put $1.2 million of his own money into his campaign and began repaying that loan in early April. The $200,000 he repaid then accounted for nearly 19% of all his spending in the preprimary reporting period.

That could signal a waning in Varela’s belief in his ability to win the nomination, Rasmussen said.

“I think the assumption is if you’re going to continue to run and you’re going to continue to raise money that you will have the opportunity down the line to repay yourself, to pay back the loan,” Rasmussen said. “So, I think it is a logical conclusion that if you are paying yourself back now and not investing every dollar available to you it is because you don’t think you’ll be continuing to raise money.”

With some exceptions, self-funding has been shown to have an inverse relationship with a candidate’s chances of winning, said Dan Cassino, director of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s poll.

“The more a candidate funds themselves, the less likely they are to win, and the reason for that is not because more money doesn’t help them,” Cassino said. “The reason for that is because candidates who are funding themselves are doing that because they can’t get other people to give them money.”

Bennett’s reserves were the largest among the district’s Democrats. She reported $764,068 banked, compared to $685,402 from Roth, $607,351 from Shah, and $358,492 from Varela.

The high burn rates could actually help the eventual Democratic nominee because that money would help build their campaign infrastructure, Cassino said.

“The campaign organization doesn’t dissolve overnight. You still have it when you get into the general election, so this just means you get a head start on building a campaign organization,” he said.

Bennett has benefited from significant outside spending boosting her campaign. VoteVets reported putting at least $928,638 behind her campaign in filings with the FEC. A separate group, the Article One PAC, reported spending at least $209,656 backing Bennett.

But she also has outside money against her. The Real Change PAC reported spending at least $510,279 against Bennett, whose campaign has alleged the group is a Republican front meant to hurt candidates it thinks may win in November.

The PAC shares a registered address with one boosting Maureen Galindo, a Texas Democratic House candidate disavowed by the state’s party establishment after saying she wanted to put Zionists in concentration camps.

Punchbowl News reported that group, called Lead Left PAC, had metadata from the Republican fundraising platform WinRed on its website.

“Front-runners attract positive independent expenditures in favor of them, but front-runners also attract negative money from the other side seeking to tear them down because they’d rather run against a different opponent,” Rasmussen said.