Democrat Rebecca Bennett will take on GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has been absent from Congress

Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot and healthcare executive, has won the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, NBC News projects, setting up a general election campaign against Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. Bennett defeated physician Tina Shah, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, and business owner Brian Varela for the Democratic nomination. Now, she will take on Kean in a district that President Donald Trump carried by just 1 percentage point in 2024, making it one of the most tightly divided districts in the country. Kean, who was first elected in 2022 and was unopposed in the Republican primary, won re-election by more than 5 points in 2024, running ahead of Trump. Kean has not voted in the Capitol or been seen in public since March 5 due to what his office describes as a “personal medical issue.” On Tuesday, he released a statement saying he’ll return to the Capitol “within a matter of weeks,” at which time he said he’ll be “completely transparent as to the nature of my medical condition.” In a May interview, Bennett told NBC News she wished Kean a “speedy recovery,” but she accused him of being “nowhere to be found” even before his medical problem on key issues affecting the district. “I do think looking at his record, he has absolutely failed this district,” Bennett told NBC News in an interview in May. “I mean, he was the deciding vote on the one big beautiful bill, which is the reason why tens of thousands of people in our district are losing access to their health insurance.” Asked during a primary debate last month why she was best positioned to defeat Kean, Bennett said her military experience and healthcare background “uniquely positioned me to flip this seat.” In the final weeks of the primary campaign, Bennett faced attacks from Shah for previously being registered as a Republican. Bennett’s campaign said the candidate grew up in a Republican family but registered as a Democrat after Donald Trump became the GOP presidential nominee in 2016. Bennett also faced attacks from a super PAC, Real Change PAC, which spent more than $600,000 on the race, according to campaign finance disclosures. The group’s ads hit Bennett as soft on Immigration and Customs Enforcement compared to Shah and Varela. But the group has not disclosed its donors, and some Democrats feared that it was a Republican-run organization seeking to influence the Democratic primary in an important battleground district. Bennett has said she would work not only to get the Democratic base motivated but also appeal to independent voters and center-right Republicans. Despite his absence, Kean’s campaign and official social media accounts have continued posting as usual. At the end of May, in his first interview in months, Kean told the New Jersey Globe that he was still running for re-election. Voters in New Jersey’s 7th District had mixed views of Kean’s absence when asked by NBC News last month. Somerville resident Bobby Anderson called Kean’s absence “pretty shocking and fairly alarming to me as a voter.” Another constituent, Cindy Capodice, said she did not think Kean was required to share the details of his health issue. “I think there’s a good amount of privacy that people are allowed to have, whether they’re in office or not,” she said.