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The field of Democratic candidates vying to challenge Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) in New Jersey’s 7th congressional district has officially swelled to eight, with criminal justice professor Beth Adubato now soliciting donations and ramping up her campaign.

Adubato first filed campaign paperwork back in May and said that she planned to run, but delayed starting campaigning until after she came back from a summer teaching job in Italy and attended a training school for labor-focused candidates. And Adubato said that her formal campaign launch won’t come until after this year’s gubernatorial election between Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville), a contest that is for now occupying the attention of most state politicians and political groups.

For all intents and purposes, though, Adubato is in the race: “I’ll be going to different meetings, I’ll be knocking on doors, I’ll be walking with the labor unions for Mikie Sherrill,” she said. “I’ll be very active.”

Looking at the Democratic field for the district, she may have a fair bit of catching up to do. Many of her primary opponents have been actively campaigning for nearly the entire year, and some have already amassed huge amounts of campaign cash; former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, the field’s fundraising leader, has reported raising more than $900,000 since entering the race in February.

Adubato, who is part of legendary Newark Democratic boss Steve Adubato’s extended family (he was her dad’s cousin), has had a multifaceted career in New Jersey and around the country. After a decade as a journalist, Adubato got a PhD in criminal justice in 2011, eventually landing at Saint Peter’s University and becoming a faculty union leader; she’s also the founder of the LINDA Organization, a nonprofit group for struggling women.

A resident of the 7th district since 2019, Adubato said that the two most important issues to her personally are women’s reproductive rights and gun control. But when it comes to flipping the seat blue, she said she knew that the key issue would be the economy and affordability, especially as they relate to the controversial One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) that Kean voted for over the summer.

“The cuts are really going to hurt many, many people,” Adubato said of the bill, which lowers taxes, cuts funding for Medicaid, and a myriad of other things. “The message is: how are we going to make life more affordable for people? We have to control this somehow.”

The 7th district is one of the most evenly divided districts in the country, and could be key to deciding which party wins the House majority next year; Kean unseated Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) in 2022 and won re-election by a larger margin last year as Donald Trump was narrowly carrying the district.

Besides Adubato, also running in the Democratic primary for the seat are Bennett, former Summit Councilman Greg Vartan, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, businessman Brian Varela, physician Tina Shah, climate scientist Megan O’Rourke, and attorney Vale Mendoza.

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