Jason Blazakis will officially enter the race for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district tomorrow, becoming the third Democrat to launch a campaign against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) in the state’s most competitive district.
“I’m running to make sure we have a thriving democracy,” Blazakis told the New Jersey Globe today. “And I’m running because I want to keep New Jersey safe and affordable. Given my experience, I’m well-suited to do that.”
Raised in rural Harmony Township, Blazakis has spent most of his career in foreign policy circles. He worked in the U.S. State Department for 14 years, including a ten-year stint leading the department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office; since 2018, he has taught international studies at Middlebury College in Vermont and operated his own geopolitical risk consultancy group.
Now running for Congress, Blazakis said that he’s most passionate about four core issues: protecting democracy, safeguarding abortion rights, securing property tax relief (including the key issue of the SALT deduction cap), and fighting climate change. Republicans like Kean, he said, haven’t done nearly enough to stand up for those causes on behalf of 7th district residents.
“I really worry about democracy right now in the year 2023, and I really worry about it in 2024, especially as it relates to MAGA extremism.” he said. “And then I see people like Tom Kean giving into the extremists, on so many different fronts: on reproductive rights, on taxes, on making sure we have the guardrails for democracy in place.”
Blazakis filed his campaign with the Federal Election Commission last week, but held off a formal announcement until after this weekend’s funeral for Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver. The New Jersey Globe first reported on Blazakis’s interest in the race in June.
Two other Democrats are already running for the 7th district against Kean, who unseated two-term Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) last year: former New Jersey Working Families Party director Sue Altman and Roselle Park Mayor Joe Signorello III.
Altman was the first to launch her campaign; she announced she would run for the seat in May, shortly after Malinowski said he wouldn’t seek a rematch, and she’s already raised more than $200,000. Signorello is a newer entry, joining the race last month, but he had previously been waging a longshot campaign for the U.S. Senate and has raised $100,000.
During his upcoming campaign against Altman and Signorello – and possibly other Democrats like former State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth), who has repeatedly signaled his interest – there are a couple of potential pitfalls that Blazakis will likely have to confront.
One is the fact that while Blazakis does have deep roots in Central Jersey – he grew up in Warren County, and his grandparents operated the Esquire Luncheonette in Princeton – he only recently moved back to the district, opening him up to potential carpetbagging allegations. But Blazakis argued that his combination of New Jersey upbringing and foreign policy experience actually make him an ideal candidate for the district, even if he’s spent some time away in the meantime.
“I’ve worked on national security for the last 20-plus years, trying to keep Americans safe from terrorists,” he said. “That took me away [from New Jersey] – working on the hardest national security challenges in the world. The experiences I accrued there, and bringing them home, really do benefit the community.”
(It’s worth noting that Malinowski, too, was a State Department official who grew up near the district and moved back shortly before his first congressional run in 2018, and it worked out fine for him.)
There’s also the fact that Blazakis hasn’t always run in Democratic circles; from 1997 to 2001, he worked as a legislative assistant for Rep. Jim Saxton (R-Mount Holly), a Burlington County Republican. Blazakis swore that he’s now a committed Democrat – Saxton was the last Republican he voted for, he said – though he noted that he would still be open to bipartisan efforts in Congress.
“In such a polarized world, you have to work across the aisle,” he said. “I’m willing to do that, I’m willing to work with Republicans, but I’m not going to sell out my core values.”
Though Blazakis was hesitant to put a single label on his political leanings, he said he overall identifies as a moderate, centrist Democrat. That could put him on a collision course with Altman and Signorello, both of whom have previously aligned themselves with more progressive elements of the Democratic Party.
The next few months will be a sprint to get as much support as possible from the district’s six county Democratic organizations, ranging from the powerful Union County Democratic machine to deep-red Sussex County, which doesn’t even have an organizational line. Blazakis will have to build up relationships from scratch with those parties – but unlike Altman and Signorello, he doesn’t have a history of actively antagonizing them, which could be a plus.
If Blazakis does make it through the Democratic primary, he’ll be in for a high-profile contest against Kean, who is already stockpiling millions of dollars after beating Malinowski by three points last year. That 2022 race witnessed more than $20 million in spending overall, and given Kean’s importance to the fragile Republican House majority, the 2024 race could be even more expensive.
Between a competitive primary and a formidable Republican incumbent, Blazakis has a tough path ahead of him. But he argued that in an era when democratic institutions are under threat, his background and experience will make him stand out from the pack.
“When people talk about fighting extremism, I have fought extremism, both while in government and outside of government,” he said. “This idea of trying to keep communities safe, and making sure that the bad stuff that’s happening overseas doesn’t permeate the United States, I think positions me to be the best candidate to take on someone like Tom Kean Jr.”