Sue Altman has made a name for herself by taking on political heavy hitters in New Jersey.
First was Chris Christie, the famously pugnacious Republican governor, who, during a 2016 town hall, was so exasperated by her questions about education funding that he tossed his microphone to her.
Three years later, she tangled with George Norcross III, then among the state’s most influential Democratic power brokers, as she led a drumbeat of criticism against corporate tax breaks awarded to companies with close ties to him.
Now Ms. Altman is seeking to unseat Thomas Kean Jr., a first-term Republican congressman who is the scion and namesake of a former governor, in one of a handful of races nationwide that will determine whether Republicans retain control of the House.
The result of Tuesday’s election in New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District may say a lot about how Mr. Kean, 56, has campaigned in the race, where recent polls have prompted Democrats to mount a last-minute push in hopes of flipping the seat.
But it also may offer insight into the direction of New Jersey and of suburban swing districts like the Seventh, an affluent and well-educated region split nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats. President Biden beat Donald J. Trump there by four points in 2020, but two years later Mr. Kean beat the Democratic incumbent, Tom Malinowski, by about three points.
Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan University’s Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship, said he saw the election mainly as a referendum on the hold that Mr. Trump has on the moderate wing of the Republican Party.
“If Democrats are able to win in NJ-7,” Professor Dworkin said, “then it will really show the negative impact that Donald Trump had on Republican candidates down ballot.”
Republican PACs have poured millions of dollars into the race. Voters in some parts of the North Jersey district, which stretches from the state’s border with Pennsylvania through quaint towns filled with horse farms to the eastern cities of Rahway and Linden, say their mailboxes fill regularly with Kean campaign literature.
According to polls, Mr. Kean is ahead by about two points against Ms. Altman, a former teacher and professional basketball player who until last year ran the Working Families alliance, a left-leaning political organizing group.
The campaign arm of House Democrats committed to spending about $4 million just last week — its first financial commitment in the race — after surveys showed that the contest was narrowing. Democratic Party luminaries like Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a leader of the congressional progressive PAC, and Bill Bradley, a former U.S. senator and New York Knicks star, have joined Ms. Altman, 42, on the campaign trail.
At a candidate forum last week, the race’s high stakes and the potency of abortion rights as a political issue were on display.
Mr. Kean described Ms. Altman’s support for abortion access as “abortion on demand,” the same terminology he used two years ago in his successful campaign against Mr. Malinowski.
Ms. Altman supports abortion access and a New Jersey law that codified the right to the procedure throughout a pregnancy.
Mr. Kean, who has endorsed Mr. Trump, describes himself as “pro-choice” and said he would oppose a national ban on abortion. But he has also said that abortion policy was “best handled at the state level” when asked about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which ended a constitutional right to abortion.
During the forum, Mr. Kean, who opposed funding for Planned Parenthood while in the State Legislature, twice referred to doctors who “commit abortion.” When asked about the phrasing, which could be interpreted as condemning doctors who perform abortions, he said he had misspoken.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in New Jersey by 917,000 voters.
But that is not the case in the Seventh Congressional District, where the G.O.P. has more support and people who are not registered with either major party represent the largest bloc of voters. The district is filled with fiscally conservative residents who also support moderate social policies and who helped to propel Republicans like Mr. Christie; Mr. Kean’s father, Gov. Thomas Kean Sr.; and Christine Todd Whitman to the state’s highest office.
A Monmouth University poll that put Mr. Kean ahead by two percentage points also found that more voters trusted him to handle issues related to the economy and crime. That edge was dwarfed, however, by Ms. Altman’s advantage when voters were asked about abortion and reproductive health policy.
Mr. Kean and his campaign have emphasized the brand of liberal politics that Ms. Altman stood for while leading Working Families, one of the state’s most progressive organizations. He has also highlighted a comment she made in 2020 on social media that referred to “those of us working on #DefundThePolice in Jersey.”
She has apologized for that sentiment and disavowed it, saying she has since gained a better understanding of policing from officers and family members who worked for police agencies.
But it is an issue that has resonated. At a town-hall meeting Ms. Altman held in Phillipsburg, on the state’s western flank, a member of the audience, Vinny Panico, challenged her position on policing.
“We have people breaking into houses, rummaging through people’s personal belongings to find their car keys to steal their cars,” Mr. Panico, 33, a Republican, said in a subsequent interview, referring to a yearslong uptick in car thefts. “Our police departments, and our men and women in blue, and our justice system, need support.”
Like Mr. Kean, Ms. Altman has worked to appeal to centrist voters, or, as she describes them, “moderate people who are witnessing their beloved Republican Party dwindling down to this extremist morass.”
She grew up in the district, regularly mentions that her parents are Republicans, and in stump speeches stresses her background as an “anti-corruption advocate” with a record of opposing Democratic as well as Republican leaders.
Both candidates are highly educated and each has raised more than $5 million in campaign contributions. Ms. Altman has two master’s degrees from Oxford; Mr. Kean has a master’s from Tufts and completed his doctoral studies there.
But the comparisons end there.
Mr. Kean is an awkward public speaker, holds few events open broadly to the public and avoids most media requests for interviews.
Ms. Altman’s energy and candor are among the first things people note after listening to her speak.
“To me, she’s like a breath of fresh air,” Melissa Lipman, 78, a Democrat, said after an event last week.
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