New Jersey House Democratic candidate Sue Altman has disavowed several anti-law enforcement policies, including the “Defund the Police” movement, that she backed in past social media posts. In an interview last week with NJ Spotlight News, Altman stated that she is “not in favor of defunding the police,” referring to the “Defund the Police” movement as a “really silly hashtag from the middle of the pandemic.
However, during her campaign to unseat Republican Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey’s 7th District last fall, a Democratic campaign operative tweeted out a screenshot showing that Altman had supported defunding the police, a post that has since been deleted. In July 2020, she said it was “awesome” that the Working Families Party was pushing to “fight to shift resources from policing to real community investments instead.
In June 2021, Altman encouraged others to attend a “police reform rally” organized by a left-wing activist who supports reparations payments for black Americans, a policy for which she has also stated her support. Another pro-police defunding group, Reproductive Freedom for All, endorsed Altman’s 2024 run earlier this year.
As of the second quarter 2024 filings, Kean maintains a fundraising advantage against Altman, with the former recording a more than $3 million campaign war chest and the latter listing $2.2 million cash-on-hand. The 7th Congressional District is currently rated as a Republican toss-up by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
