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>> From NJ PBS studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello and thanks for joining us.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

Tonight we're taking a look at the state's most contested House race, New Jersey's 7th congressional district currently held by Republican Tom Kaine Jr.

Now, it's shaping up as a key battleground in the 2026 midterm election, with Democrats hoping to flip the seat blue again.

After a crowded primary field narrowed, four Democratic candidates remain, with each making their case to voters ahead of the June 2nd primary.

Joanna Gagas and I recently spoke with them about their priorities and a vision for the district should they win.

Take a look.

Brian, welcome.

Good to talk with you.

Why are you running for this seat?

I know in a lot of your campaign literature, your previous interviews, you've said that you want to make an impact on your community.

Why not run for a local seat, cut your teeth there first, before moving on to a federal office?

Right now, thank you for having me, but right now what we need is the fighter.

We are seeing a corrupted administration and a silent congressman that's supposed to represent this district pretty much letting the executive branch steamroll Congress, which is supposed to be a check and balance on the executive branch.

And we are missing that fight right now.

I'm someone that's been a fighter my whole life.

I fought to pay my way through school.

I fought to keep my family afloat when my mom got sick.

I fought to raise my younger brother when he was 13 and I was 24.

I fought to build a business from scratch during COVID.

And I fought to expand the Democratic Party, particularly in very red parts of this district and here in the state.

And what we are missing right now is that level of fight down in D.C.

and that's what I plan to take down there.

There's quite a few candidates in this race.

What sets you and specifically your platform apart that you believe can defeat Tom Kane in the general election, someone who has very high name recognition and of course a long background of being in elected office.

Voters are absolutely sick and tired of the usual.

They are tired of the same type of Democrats that have failed us over and over again that have led to a Trump presidency.

And what we need right now is boldness and courage.

And I believe that when it comes to the families of this district, when they're presented with a candidate that's bringing those bold ideas, that's standing on courage, that's speaking truth to power, and that most importantly is putting their interest above the billionaire class, which is what Tom Kane and Donald Trump are doing right now, that's what's getting voters engaged.

That's what's going to energize the base.

And quite frankly, that's what's going to win over a lot of the disaffected Republicans and independent voters, unaffiliated voters who cannot stand what is happening in D.C.

right now.

We need a fighter, and we need someone who's going to fight for the families of New Jersey 7, and that is me.

You have your first TV ad out this week where you pledged to dismantle, quote, Trump's ICE.

We're hearing this a lot from Democratic candidates this season in particular.

Are there specific policies, though, that you'd pursue, Brian, to reform or replace the current form of immigration enforcement?

Yeah, look, for starters, and I don't know if people are aware, but we are spending three times more money right now to deport someone's grandmother than what we're spending to protect this country from terrorism.

And as taxpayers, we should be livid.

We've got the Trump administration and Tom Kane Jr., who has allowed the Trump administration to use ICE as their own federal rogue agency.

We are not seeing law enforcement, right?

While I believe we need some sort of immigration enforcement, this is absolutely not it.

And what we need to do is completely dismantle Trump's ICE because the priority is not immigration enforcement or law enforcement.

The priority is cruelty and we are seeing too many of our immigrant neighbors being terrorized.

But how do you do that, Brian?

I mean, you're citing the numbers of what it costs, but how do you reform it?

What's your plan to do that?

Well, for starters, a very low-hanging fruit.

We scale back everything that the Trump administration has done.

We scale back the additional funding that they've gotten through the big, beautiful bill.

We can start there and then build from that.

Let me ask about your campaign funding.

The majority of it comes from self-loans.

How do you respond to criticism that this reflects a lack of enthusiasm in your district or a lack of grassroots support?

Well, my answer to that is very simply.

As the anti-establishment candidate, as someone who's an outsider, I've got the largest coalition in this race.

We've been endorsed by over 80 Democratic leaders here in the district.

We've been endorsed by two counties and several different organizations.

And the fact that we've been able to build that coalition, in spite of not being the establishment's candidate, I think speaks a lot about the energy within the grassroots and from the ground up.

We had 34 volunteers who helped us collect the most petitions out of anyone in this race.

And in spite of all that, we still managed to raise over $700,000, with roughly 93% of those donations coming from New Jersey and a $10 median donation.

You're pledging to lower costs for families to make New Jersey more affordable.

How?

With very logical policies.

For starters, I believe in universal childcare.

I think that we can cap childcare to $10 a day.

And when we do that, we are empowering parents to work.

We're investing in the future of our children, because they're going to be starting their academic career off on the right foot.

And ultimately, that's a policy that's going to lead to a more productive society, which is going to widen the middle class and create a stronger economy for everyone.

And there are a lot of other policies like that that will have the same types of impact that I believe in.

Let me ask you quickly before we have to go.

A lot of your platform focuses on what you say is you know defending democracy protecting voting rights.

Given the Supreme Court's decision yesterday narrowing the scope of the Voting Rights Act what legislation or is there specific legislation that you'd pursue to sort of redefine some of the protections that have been in place for decades.

My goodness this has been one of those things that's been hanging out there.

We have to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

We have to pass it because right now our democracy is at stake and this administration is going to take advantage of what the Supreme Court just did and ultimately they're going to disenfranchise voters all across the country.

What I am seeing, what I saw today and my fear for the future of this country, it alarms me and we need to fix that and we need a Congress that's going to do that and we need to do that immediately.

Brian Varela is a candidate, a Democratic candidate in the primary race for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District.

Brian, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me.

Dr.

Shah joins us now.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Thank you for having me, Joanna.

Can you tell us why you're running in this race and in this district?

I'm running because as a physician, I have just seen too many people be hurt by Trump's policies, and I'm tired of watching Tom Kane Jr.

and the other Republicans in Congress not do anything about it.

Joanne, I want to tell you, I recently took care of a woman, Mrs.

J., who came in because her insurance company denied her asthma inhalers, and she had to be put on a ventilator.

This is unacceptable in our country, and that's why I've actually dedicated my professional career to addressing our broken health care system.

Yeah I want to I want to get into that a little bit because clearly you have a whole lot of experience here and health care costs continue to rise across the country.

They're choking out families.

Many have dropped off of the Affordable Care Act plans.

School systems even are getting choked by these rising costs year over year.

What actually can be done to address those rising costs even beyond subsidies?

Well, first, we do have to reverse what the Trump administration did.

We need to take back what happened in the big ugly bill.

And instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, we need to make sure that we fund Medicaid and one in five New Jerseyans relies on Medicaid.

And we do need to restore the tax credits so that when a family decides to buy insurance on the marketplace it's affordable because right now it's astronomical.

It's over ten thousand dollars per family of four just to afford health insurance.

I know you champion some efforts.

You mentioned insurance companies.

You champion an effort to get insurance companies to stop denying care for essential needs and services.

You mentioned asthma.

What does that look like here in New Jersey.

Could you scale that.

So New Jersey has now one of the strongest pieces of legislation to stop insurance companies from prior authorization tactics to delay care.

I was proud to organize a grassroots movement where we got a bill passed.

And now if you are in a regulated policy by the state you can't have your medical care denied.

Before this people would wait up to 14 or 15 days to hear from an insurance company if that critical MRI was approved for their insane back pain or if that medical test was approved.

And now it's either 24 hours if it's urgent or 72 hours if it's not urgent.

But we need to take this playbook that we developed in New Jersey all the way up to D.C.

because people are really hurting right now.

There's a whole lot more happening beyond health care although that's a huge and critical piece.

But you are the daughter of immigrants.

I want to ask your thoughts about ice activity here across our country.

Do you believe that there is a role for ice to play in ensuring that only those who are here legally remain here in this country?

Ice plays a critical role in protecting our borders and we really do need ice to make sure that we abide and that they follow law and order.

But what's happened under the Trump administration is that we now have masked men on the street picking up people that look like me and many other people in our community here in New Jersey's 7th District and that's unacceptable.

They're going into our schools, they're going into our hospitals.

These are sacred places and they don't have the right to do so.

If you were elected to Congress, how would you handle the case that's happening in Roxbury right now?

Of course, under the new DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen, we know that he's reviewing the purchase of this warehouse in Roxbury that's meant to house at least 1,500 detainees.

How would you handle that if you were the representative?

Well, Joanna, this is really interesting.

In Roxbury, the Republican Town Council and mayor and the Democrats all agree that we don't want that detention center.

And they sought Tom Kane Jr., the sitting member of Congress, his help, and he was unavailable and did not help.

So, as a member of Congress, I'm going to be listening to my constituents and fighting for them, unlike the current member, Tom Kane Jr.

We know that redistricting made this a very uphill climb, I'll say, for any Democrat looking to unseat the incumbent congressman.

20,000 votes now are there.

I should say there are more 20,000 more Republican voters in the district than there are Democratic voters.

And yet no one's seen or heard from the congressman in weeks.

Do you think that you have a chance to actually take over and turn this district blue.

Of course if you win the primary.

Well, I love this question, Joanna.

And let me just first say as a physician, I wish all the best to Congressman Tom Kaine Jr.

as he's dealing with his medical issues.

And as far as flipping this seat and winning this race so that I can best represent New Jersey's 7th, I wholeheartedly have the strongest path to win.

I'm actually the only candidate who has worked for both a Republican president and a Democrat president.

This is a district that wants to see things getting done, and I have a track record of doing that.

Just very quickly, we are in conflict with Iran.

How would you handle that?

Do you believe that we should continue to support Israel, both financially and with weapons?

I know that's a loaded question with a short amount of time left.

Well, Trump went against the Constitution and decided to start a war with Iran.

As a member of Congress, I'll hold him in check.

And second, I wholeheartedly believe in supporting Israel, and I believe in unconditional support when it comes to U.S.

providing aid.

We need to make sure that we address the problems that are happening and the challenges to ensure Israel's security.

And at the same time, my heart really breaks for the humanitarian crisis happening in Gaza.

Everyone deserves basic medical care.

Everyone deserves access to food.

And what we're watching now is no access to medical care and famine.

The global community really needs to step up here.

All right, Dr.

Tina Shah, Democratic primary candidate in Congressional District 7.

Of course, the primary election is on June 2.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you so much for having me, Joanna.

Rebecca, welcome to the show.

Thanks for being with us.

Thanks so much for having me on.

Excited for the conversation.

Why do you believe that you are the best Democratic candidate to take on, and I imagine you believe you can beat, Congressman Tom Kaine Jr.?

Yeah, well, you know, just a quick background on me.

I'm a former Navy helicopter pilot.

I served in the military for over 15 years, and I led missions, people, and teams all over the world.

From there, I moved into healthcare, where I've been working in the private sector ever since.

I've worked in a bunch of different areas of healthcare, to include women's health, which is near and dear to my heart.

I'm also a mom to two girls, and I'm raising my girls here in the district.

And I understand the challenges that we're facing in this district, because my family is dealing with them, too.

And all of those things combined uniquely position me on being able to build the coalition that we need to be able to flip this seat.

We need to be able to get Democrats engaged and motivated and excited.

We also need to be able to appeal to independent voters and center-right Republicans.

And my background as a military veteran, private sector leader and mom uniquely positioned me on being able to do that.

And I'll also just add, we need to be able to raise the resources we need to be able to in order to flip the seat and be able to communicate with voters.

I'm very proud to share that I've raised over $2.6 million so far without taking any corporate PAC money.

And that's come from over 13 individual, 13,000 individual donors across the district.

You said you wanted, let me ask you this.

You said you wanted to address the needs of the voters in the district.

What do you believe those needs and concerns are?

Yeah, you know, I'll hear, I'll say here, we've got to walk and chew gum at the same time.

So what I hear most from people on the ground is we've got to hold this Trump administration accountable for its corruption and its lawlessness.

But we also have to solve the issues that we are facing.

And what I hear top of mind from everyone is cost of living.

You know, we are living through an affordability crisis right now.

Everything is more expensive.

Child care elder care groceries housing energy health care.

And you know I could go on and on and on.

But we're not seeing solutions to those problems.

And so I rolled out a really robust policy platform to address those issues and to actually make people's lives better.

So those are the things that we've got to focus on in office.

What specific policies would you advocate for in the health care space as someone who's worked across a range of sectors in the health care industry to bring those costs down and to increase access to health care.

Yeah absolutely.

You know I'll say for me there's a couple of things here.

So number one we've got to make sure that we are getting the subsidies back or the Affordable Care Act to make sure we're bringing those health insurance premiums down and also looking to undo some of the cuts that got put into effect for Medicaid.

Tom King Jr.

was the deciding vote on the one big beautiful bill which means that tens of thousands of people in our district are losing access to their health insurance either because they can't afford their premiums or because of Medicaid cuts.

And we know that that is just going to make the cost of health care go up for all of us because people are going to wait until they get sicker.

They're going to go to the emergency room which is the most expensive place to get care.

So that's number one is make sure that we're undoing those cuts and then looking at the more proactive of what can we do to actually make sure our health care system works better for all of us.

I believe we need a public option to be able to give people choice.

And we also need to make sure we're protecting against people with pre-existing conditions.

You know as a mom who's had two kids and I'm also a veteran to both of those things would have previously prevents me from being able to get access to care.

So we've got to make sure that everyone has access to quality affordable health care and no one's going broke because of their medical bills.

Of course Affordable Care Act does address that.

I just want to switch gears as a former Navy helicopter pilot.

I don't know if you would have any intention of sitting on the Armed Forces Committee but I have to ask do you believe that the U.S.

made the right move in the way that it attacked Iran.

Yeah you know I would love to sit on the House Armed Services Committee.

I was a helicopter pilot.

I was also an experimental test pilot and so led the development of technology for both the United States and partner nations.

And what I'll say about what's going on in the Middle East is that any time we are going to go put American service members in harm's way there needs to be a clear motivation clear objectives and a clear exit strategy.

We're not seeing any of that from this administration.

And so it is incredibly upsetting just about how cavalier this administration has been about the loss of American life and what we're seeing in the Middle East.

And so we need to make sure we're working towards sustainable long term peace in the region.

One of the issues that a lot of voters are kind of arguing about here and in your district is whether or not there should be any conditions over the US support of Israel.

Do you believe conditions should exist in that ally ship.

You know I've seen firsthand how important Israel is as an ally to the United States.

And I do believe that we need to have a two state solution.

I think that we need to support Israel as an ally and they need the resources to be able to defend themselves.

And so to me it's about working towards that long term peace in the region.

And what we're seeing from our leaders in this administration is that they do not understand the severity and the stakes of what we're talking about.

It's why it's important we have people with a seat at the table that understand the stakes and the gravity of what we're doing so we can really work towards that long term peace and rebuild in the region for a long term peace in the region.

Here at home you say that one of your key priorities is keeping communities safe.

One way you'd like to do that is gun safety reforms.

Those have been deadlocked on Capitol Hill for four years if not decades.

What reforms would you push and do you believe you could make any progress there.

Yeah.

You know this is one that is also deeply personal for me.

I trained people on how to use weapons of war.

I flew with weapons of war on my aircraft in the military.

And I'm a mom to two girls.

And every day when I send my girls off to school I make sure to leave on a really positive note because I know they may not come home at the end of the day.

And that is the reality that so many families are facing in this country.

And it is unacceptable.

And so this is absolutely something that I want to champion and to work on getting meaningful or you know legislation passed.

And there's a lot of common sense thing things that most of us agree on like background checks and red flag laws.

And so absolutely we'll continue to push on that because I want families to be able to live and you know live free and feel safe in their communities.

You say common sense reforms.

How would you would you attempt to reach across the aisle.

Because right now there are a lot of folks who say those are not common sense that those are restricting their Second Amendment rights.

Just a couple of seconds left.

Yeah you know I would say on that that this is how I've led my entire life which is country over party and service over self.

And so if I can find people to work on being able to find meaningful solutions to something like background checks and red flag laws to solve our gun violence epidemic then I will absolutely work with them.

All right.

We have to leave it there.

Rebecca Bennett a Democratic primary candidate in District 7.

Thank you so much for taking some time to talk to us today.

Thank you.

Michael welcome to you.

Thanks for coming on the show.

What makes you the best candidate out of the four to represent the party against Tom Kane Jr.

Thank you for having me.

It's a privilege to be here.

My name is Michael Roth former leader at the U.S.

Small Business Administration where I delivered more for New Jersey in six months and Tom Kane Jr.

has in a quarter of representing us.

I wish people were more surprised when I told them that in my family we have a motto and this is true.

We say everything is better in New Jersey and it's not because this place is perfect but my grandparents came here after surviving the Holocaust and a New Jersey community wrapped their arms around my family and help them build a life here.

And I'm running because New Jersey gave my family a shot.

And I believe when a place gives you a shot, you stand up and you fight for it.

And today families across New Jersey 7 are working hard and still feeling like they cannot get ahead.

Costs are too high, too many politicians are more focused on their donors and party politics than actually delivering for people.

And I have spent my time... Let me ask you how you would deliver that, Michael.

I know a big part of your platform, at least in the literature that you put out, is about bringing more federal dollars back to New Jersey.

How would you go about that differently than numbers are already doing now?

Yeah, look, my platform is simple.

It's to fight back, to lower costs, and reform a broken system.

First, we have to fight back against corruption, cruelty, the abuses of power, and that means real oversight and accountability and protecting people's rights.

Second, we need a day one affordability agenda.

That means lowering utility bills, bringing housing back here, bringing jobs that pay six figures, making health care more affordable.

And look, a lot of people will say these things, but I am ready on day one because I have done this before.

At the Small Business Administration, I I had delivered funding here to save one million New Jersey jobs.

I fought back against Donald Trump when he was blocking federal funding for immigrants who are here legally, when he was blocking federal funding for Planned Parenthood clinics.

And I won.

I delivered for the people before and I'm ready on day one to do it again.

Well, you oversaw for a brief time anyway, the rollout of the PPP loans during COVID, which did deliver relief for millions of business owners, but it also faced a lot of criticism, as you know, for rampant fraud, for access gaps and other issues.

What responsibility, with that?

Yeah.

So when I took over in 2021, the Trump administration had launched the program with an incredible amount of fraud.

And on day one, we stepped in, and we closed the loopholes that made that fraud possible.

I'll give you an example.

Our very representative Tom Kane Jr.

took out funding from the Paycheck Protection Program.

He signed a piece of paper that said that he from his estate in Westfield needed federal funding because COVID hurt them.

On day one I stepped in and I made sure that that funding was only accessible for people who deserved it, who needed the funding, and I made sure that people like our representative Tom Kane Jr.

were no longer able to access it.

Let me ask where you stand on immigration enforcement and specifically the role of ICE, how you balance concerns about border security with concerns about humanitarianism, which I know you've spoken about before.

Yeah, we need strong borders and clear pathways in, but what we're seeing on our streets right now is authoritarianism in plain sight.

We've seen masked men on our streets tearing families apart, no due process.

And right now in the detention centers, people are not getting health care.

And there's no due process in them getting there to begin with.

It's happening right here in New Jersey.

Trump just purchased a warehouse in Roxbury in our district to warehouse human beings.

Let that sentence sink in.

And Tom Kane Jr.

has done nothing.

I strongly oppose turning a warehouse into in Roxbury into a mass detention center.

I think that we need immigration enforcement that is lawful, that is transparent, that is accountable.

I want to get one more quick one in for you.

Given our involvement with rising tensions in the Middle East, when it comes to funding for those conflicts, would you support it if there are conditions, do you believe that there should be conditions on USAID, military aid?

Look, the war in Iran is a war of choice.

There's been no clear objective.

There's been no timeline.

There's no evidence that an attack was imminent.

What victory would look like is if we actually lowered prices here in New Jersey, if we invested in our health care, in our food.

And it's not just theoretical.

I was in the reddest part of our district last week, and I talked to a farmer who has had a farm in their family for 100 years, and they told me that they don't think they're going to make it to next year.

The tariffs cut off their customers.

Immigration policy means that workers are no longer showing up.

And now the war in Iran, they are expecting to pay an additional $100,000 a year just in fertilizer next year.

Michael Roth, thank you so much for your time.

We really appreciate it.

Good luck in the primary.

Thank you so much for having me.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire NJ Spotlight News Team, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you next time.

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