Fall of the House of Kean In NJ-7

The heir to one of New Jersey’s must illustrious political names met defeat for the third time last week.

The final results from the Garden State’s upscale 7^th District showed State Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean, Jr., namesake-son of a popular former two-term governor, losing to freshman Democrat Rep. Tom Malinowski by about 5,000 votes — or less than one percent of all votes cast.

This is the third defeat for Kean in an attempt to move to federal office. In 2000, he placed second in a field of four candidates for the Republican nomination for Congress from the 7^th District. 

Six years later, he lost a race for the U.S. Senate to Democrat Bob Menendez by 54% to 44%. 

While he ran as a moderate in the mold of his father in previous campaigns, Kean fully embraced President Trump in this race and ran hard-hitting TV spots slamming Malinowski as a left-winger.

A former assistant U.S. secretary of state for human rights under President Obama, Malinowski campaigned on the slogan “He stood up to dictators. He’ll stand up for you.”

In unseating Republican Rep. Leonard Lance two years ago, Malinowski became the first Democrat to represent the district since 1956. 

Kean’s grandfather Robert Kean was a twenty-year Republican U.S. Representative from New Jersey and great grandfather Hamilton Fish Kean was U.S. Senator from the state from 1928-34.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.