The public grows aware that Tom Kean Jr. is pretending to have it both ways

There is a particular species of politician who believes that if he says “moderate” enough times into a mirror, his extreme right-wing voting record will magically disappear.

Congressman Tom Kean Jr. is that species’ poster child—a lawmaker who wants the political benefit of taking a stand without the inconvenience of actually standing for anything.

Consider his choreography on health care.

In 2026, with midterm voters breathing down his neck, Kean Jr. flipped to vote with Democrats on an Affordable Care Act extension. A profile in courage? Hardly. This was a man reading the room—specifically, polling that showed cutting Medicaid was a “major dealbreaker” for nearly half of voters.

But the record does not lie, and Kean Jr.’s is littered with the bodies of New Jerseyans’ health care protections.

He voted for a 2025 budget bill that let ACA tax credits expire—spiking monthly premiums by an average of 114 percent. He supported the largest Medicaid cuts in American history, jeopardizing coverage for nearly 20,000 of his own constituents.

He voted to gut protections for almost 400,000 people in New Jersey’s 7th District with pre-existing conditions. He voted against a prescription drug program for seniors and people with disabilities while drug companies charged far lower prices in Russia.

And yet, after all this, he wants credit for a single defensive vote. That is not moderation. That is amnesia masquerading as principle.

On immigration, Kean Jr. has perfected the art of the non-answer.

During an October 2024 debate, when asked directly whether he supported Donald Trump’s plan to deport migrants who entered the country illegally, the congressman stared silently ahead for ten full seconds before pivoting to border patrol agents and wall construction—without ever addressing the question. His Democratic opponent pounced immediately: “You just dodged the question.” She was right.

This silence is instructive.

Kean Jr. has spent years positioning himself as a reasonable alternative to hardline immigration rhetoric. But when pressed to either embrace or reject the most aggressive deportation proposals of his party’s standard-bearer, he simply froze.

That is not statesmanship. That is a man caught between his donor class and his district, hoping the camera will cut away before anyone notices he has nothing to say.

Congressman Tom Kean Jr. has voted with President Donald Trump every step of the way, racking up a 100% record of support during this session of Congress. Kean only endorsed Trump for president in 2024 after dodging the question for months.

On war and foreign policy, the contradictions grow stranger still.

Kean Jr. has led bipartisan efforts to fund and audit military aid to Ukraine—genuinely serious work that aligns with his district’s interest in America’s global role. Yet he has also voted repeatedly for budgets that would kneecap domestic health care and social services to finance tax breaks for billionaires. The message seems to be: We can afford to project strength abroad but not to care for our own sick and elderly at home.

The pattern holds on abortion as well. Kean Jr. insists he is pro-choice.

He says he opposes a national abortion ban, but he was caught lying about this issue. Yet he voted against enshrining abortion rights in New Jersey state law, calling its provisions “extreme.”

He has refused to cosponsor federal protections for in vitro fertilization—though four other House Republicans from competitive districts have managed to do so. And he supported the Dobbs decision that rolled back Roe v. Wade, enabling draconian bans in nearly a third of the country.

To be pro-choice is to believe that women should have access to reproductive health care. To vote against protecting that access, to cheer the decision that eliminates it, and to offer nothing but tax credits while IVF access hangs in legal limbo—that is not a position. That is a branding exercise.

The most damning summary comes not from a partisan source but from a nonpartisan legislative scorekeeper.

PoliScore, which analyzes congressional voting records, concluded that while Kean Jr. has worked on “serious, useful ideas” like quantum computing research and autism support, his “day-to-day votes too often side with powerful interests and hard-line social policies instead of the long-term health and fairness needs of ordinary people in his district.”

This is the tragedy of Tom Kean Jr. He is not a fool. He is not an ideologue. He is a capable legislator who has chosen, time and again, to vote against the interests of his own constituents when those interests conflicted with his party’s donors and leadership.

He voted against paid sick leave twice—including during a pandemic, when workers needed exactly that protection. He has taken nearly a million dollars from insurance and pharmaceutical interests while voting to preserve their pricing power. He supported a lawsuit to dismantle the ACA while representing a district where hundreds of thousands rely on its protections.

And then, when the political winds shift, he expects us to forget.

The voters of New Jersey’s 7th District deserve better than a congressman who calculates every vote by which way the polling averages blow. They deserve someone who will answer a direct question about deportation policy without staring into the middle distance for ten seconds. They deserve someone whose commitment to health care is not measured by how scared he is of an election.

Tom Kean Jr. wants to have it both ways. But on health care, immigration, war, and every other issue where lives hang in the balance, having it both ways means having no way at all.