Credit: (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
WASHINGTON — New Jersey congressman Tom Kean Jr., who has not been seen in public in months and faces an escalating campaign fight, will return to the Capitol in June, according to the man leading congressional Republicans’ reelection efforts.
Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the national campaign apparatus for the party, told reporters he spoke to Kean, who said he would return to vote in Congress next month.
Kean, 57, has not voted in the House chamber or in his committees since March and remains on the ballot for the June 2 primary election. Kean has missed more than 100 roll-call votes, though his presence would not have made a difference in the outcome of the vast majority of those votes.
Staff have repeatedly said Kean has been dealing with a “personal health matter,” and declined to state the issue, disclose where Kean has been or provide a firm timeline of when he would return to full work.
Colleagues from both parties have grown worried about Kean’s health, and for weeks he has not replied to their calls and text messages.
NJ Spotlight News on Friday got no response from the New Jersey Republican State Committee and his office staff to questions about his health status and whether he’s continuing to run.
Crucial swing seat
The path to control of Congress for the second half of Donald Trump’s presidential term runs through swing seats like Kean’s.
The nonpartisan election analysis newsletter Inside Elections shifted its outlook for the race for New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District from Kean and toward Democrats on Thursday.
“GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. has not been seen in public or private for more than two months as he deals with an unspecified medical condition,” the firm said in a brief report. “Kean’s staff insists that the congressman will be back to work shortly and continues to send out communications in his name, but there’s no indication of when he will actually return or where he currently is. While Democrats have a competitive primary to sort through, Republicans need their candidate to be present and on the trail in order to hold this swing seat.”
The memo concludes: “Move from Tilt Republican to Toss-up.”
The Cook Political Report, another nonpartisan handicapper, moved Kean’s race in November to “toss up.”
‘Voters will send him back’
In a statement Friday, Eli Cousin, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to Congress, tore into Kean.
“Career politician Tom Kean Jr. has never been more vulnerable,” Cousin said. “He will be held accountable for betraying New Jersey families and for the damage he has inflicted when he’s actually been in Washington to vote.”
An Environmental Protection Agency staffer during the early 1990s, Kean then worked for Republican congressman Bob Franks before serving in the state Legislature for almost two decades.
“Tom Kean Jr.’s record of lowering taxes, cutting costs, and fighting for New Jerseyans speaks for itself, and voters will send him back to Washington in November because of it,” Maureen O’Toole, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.
Kean voted for Republicans’ primary legislation this Congress — a multitrillion-dollar bill that will provide permanent tax cuts for businesses, temporary tax cuts for citizens. It also will make cuts worth $1 trillion to Medicaid, the national health insurance program for the poor and disabled, and $285 billion to a federal food assistance program.
Asked whether Kean is running, O’Toole referred to an interview the congressman gave Thursday to New Jersey Globe. Kean told the publication, “I’m running.” He did not share any details about his health status.
Kean spoke this week to two Republican Party officials — the chairs of Union and Somerset counties — who said the congressman sounded fine, according to Politico.
