Tom Malinowski Remarks Following New Jersey Primary Results

Declaring himself as the democratic candidate for NJ-07, and road mapping the campaign ahead

(Basking Ridge, NJ) Tonight, Tom Malinowski addressed supporters following the results of the New Jersey primary election.

Click here to watch his remarks or read them below.

“I know there are a lot of issues out there that are making people worried and anxious. And that’s one reason why if you look at the Democratic side of our primary CD-07 this year, we’re completely united. The Democratic party is a big tent. We’ve got progressives, we’ve got moderates, we’ve got people who have all kinds of different priorities. But I think we are completely united right now by an understanding that there is great danger in this time in our political history.

We are a lot more united than the folks on the other side as their primary results are showing tonight. And I think the unity on our side is also a reflection of the incredible work that this team has done over the last four years in getting to know the voters of this district, listening to their concerns, and delivering for them.

As you know, I’ve held now well over 100 town halls all across this district. In comparison to, I guess my likely opponent, Tom Kean, Jr, who has been in politics for 20 years and held zero public meetings.

This doesn’t get as much attention, but the people of the district know that we have done absolutely awesome constituent service. We’ve helped nearly 10,000 constituents, working one person at a time, resolve problems with federal agencies. People out there – whether they’re Republican, Democrat, Independent – know how hard we work to make sure that they are taken care of, that they get what they are entitled to as citizens of this country from the government that is supposed to serve them.

And for all those reasons we’ve got the wind at our backs. We can go into this election, heading towards November talking about all the things that we’ve accomplished.

Remember where we were four years ago. The number one issue in our first election in 2018, was healthcare. We were one vote in the United States Senate away from the Affordable Care Act being repealed. That one vote was Senator John McCain. Then we lost John McCain. Had we lost him and the House of Representatives, tens of millions of our fellow Americans would not have healthcare right now, would not have had health care during the COVID pandemic. Imagine how horrific that would have been. We prevented that. And not only did we prevent that, but we then acted to make healthcare under the ACA more affordable for working and middle class Americans all across New Jersey and this country.

Another big issue four years ago was infrastructure because, duh, we’re from New Jersey. And this is what we need the most from the federal government, and what we were getting the least of – investment in fixing our roads, our bridges, our mass transit, our water systems, all of the things that represent the foundation of our economy in New Jersey. So what did we do? We elected a Democratic House and ultimately Senate, and we passed the biggest investment in infrastructure in our country’s history, including full funding for the Gateway tunnel and funding for dozens of projects in every single community in this district that are going to improve people’s lives.

And then remember where we were two years ago. Two years ago, every single small business on every Main Street in New Jersey and across the country was shut down unless they were essential. Tens of millions of Americans were out of work. And the leading economists in the country were on the phone with us in Congress those first few weeks of the pandemic and March of 2020. And they were saying, ‘If you don’t do something big, if you don’t do something fast, we are heading towards a Great Depression in America.’ Those jobs would have been lost permanently. Those businesses would have disappeared permanently.

We did something uncharacteristic for the United States Congress. We acted big. We acted fast. And we can now say – absolutely definitively – that we brought the American economy back from the dead. We have lower unemployment today at the end of that effort than we have had in the United States for over 50 years.

But we also have significant ongoing problems. And right now our big challenge, and what should be the big issue in this election, is having saved all of those jobs, those tens of millions of jobs, we’ve got to come together to protect the paychecks that go with those jobs by dealing with inflation, by dealing with a supply chain crisis, by dealing with gas prices. That’s why I’ve been leading in the House of Representatives to pass bipartisan legislation, that’s going through both Houses right now, to bring those supply chains, to bring the manufacturing of those goods that are critical to our economy back to America so we can make it in America again. Whether it’s the microchips that are now the critical component of almost everything we buy, or pharmaceutical ingredients, or PPE, or battery technology, we’ve got to break our dependence on countries like China for these supply chains that power our economy. That is one of the central lessons of the pandemic and a way to deal with the root causes of the inflation that we are now experiencing.

And while we’re at it, let’s lower costs for American consumers as well. And this is going to be a huge difference. In this election, I’m for letting Medicare negotiate the price of prescription drugs, to get the price of prescription drugs down. My opponent is absolutely against that. I’m for capping the cost of childcare for middle class, New Jersey families. I’m for slapping a windfall profits tax on our oil companies that are making record profits right now to fund rebates for consumers that are suffering with high prices. My opponent is not for any of that stuff.

And in fact, if you look at where the Republicans are on economic issues, on inflation – they’re going to say a lot about it, they’re gonna complain about it, they’re gonna blame Biden – but ask what is their solution? What are they actually proposing? There is absolutely nothing there. Look at the states that they’re actually in charge of, the places in America where they have actual power. Are they doing anything about the economy? Are they doing anything about gas prices? No.

All we see them focusing on in those states is banning abortion. It’s censoring school textbooks. It’s all chaos. It’s culture wars. It’s trying to reopen issues that we thought were settled in this country for many, many years. And we see even worse than that. In a lot of these states, Republicans are trying to do by legislation what the rioters on January 6th tried to do with baseball bats. They’re trying to essentially subvert the next election of the President of the United States by turning over to politicians in the states, the ability to decide who won an election, no matter who got the most votes from the American people.

I’ll tell you that the easiest question in American politics right now, the easiest question, I think is: Was the attack, the brutal violent attack on police officers in the Capitol of the United States on January 6th, legitimate political discourse? I can answer that question. Most Americans can answer that question. Tom Kean refuses to answer that question. He is afraid to do it. Most Americans, including a lot of Republicans I speak to, want to move past Trump, want to move past the craziness and chaos of those four years. And Tom Kean is advertising his support for Donald Trump right now. I don’t know. Is it real? Is it phony? Is it conviction? Is it cowardice? I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. That’s what he is. There’s no coming back from that.

And another difference, I want to do this job. He just wants to have this job. He has been running for this job for the last 20 years to the point that I think he’s forgotten why he wants it. People of the 7th District will, I think, see the difference there.

So a lot of this, I think explains the other interesting development in our race today. Obviously, I’m proudly accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party, awarded to me by the people of this district to be the Congressman from the seventh district for another two years. But you guys may have seen the news that today, I also accepted the nomination of a new party in New Jersey, the Moderate Party, which was formed by Republicans and Independents, including elected Republican officials in our district who are just fed up by the extremism and chaos on their side, what has happened to their party since Donald Trump took it over and who are desperately trying to find a way to bring this country back to the center, back to moderation. They’ve offered me their support, their nomination for this congressional race.

And I think that’s reflective of where we are right now. There is a growing alliance in this country, of Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans who, I think, occupy the middle ground. We’re people who support law enforcement, we support the police. But you know, we support them, whether they’re protecting our homes from crime or protecting our Capitol from an insurrection. You’ve got to do both if you say that you support the police.

We’re folks who believe that our immigration laws need to be enforced at the border, but we also understand that America is a country of immigrants and we need legal immigration right now. It’s the right thing to do. It’s good for our economy. We’re pro business, we’re pro capitalism, but we also believe that corporations should pay taxes. And we understand that the future of American business is clean energy and I want America to lead the world in this clean energy revolution. Sometimes it seems to me, at least by their actions and their policies, that Republicans want China to lead that transition. That’s completely unacceptable to me.

And in the wake of these horrific massacres of children, like the one that we saw in Texas, I think we occupy the middle ground in this country when we say that children need to be protected from criminals with guns, not from librarians with books. I think I speak for the vast majority of parents in the 7th Congressional District, when I say that.

Above all, I think what I’m hearing from voters in the district, Republican, or Independent or Democrat, is that they’re just tired of being told to hate their neighbors over politics. They want to get a sense of community back. They want to be able to go to baseball games, and bake sales, and parades, and have legitimate constructive arguments about policy, but not ones that break up families and ruin friendships and lead to violence in this country.

There’s a yearning out there for leaders who when they see a fire burning, reach for a bucket of water, not a canister of gasoline. That’s the kind of leadership that I’ve tried to offer these last four years. It’s why we’re, I think, a unified party around this campaign. It’s why we are attracting Independents and Republicans to unite with us around those values. And it’s why I’m absolutely confident that together, this team is going to win another historic election in this district that is going to send a message around the country about where we should be going as Americans over the next two years.

Thank you all so, so much for everything you do to make this possible. And I can’t wait to be back home this weekend and to see you again, and again, and again, and again until we win our victory in November.”