Tom Kean Jr., a foot soldier for Trump, is the extremist in District 7 | Moran

The battle lines in the race between Rep. Tom Kean Jr. and his Democratic challenger, Sue Altman, are taking clear shape with a month to go.

Kean is the one who won't talk to the press, and rarely emerges from his cave to hold events. If you haven't seen the recent video of him stuck in an elevator with a reporter, it is must-see viewing for anyone in the 7th District. The reporter, Ben Hulac of NJ Spotlight, can't get a reaction from Kean on any policy, or his endorsement of Donald Trump. "You pick the topic," Hulac says in desperation. "I'd love to talk to you about literally anything."

In the end, he asks Kean about the Mets, and what he had for lunch, hoping to stir some human response.

Kean stares ahead, stone-faced and silent, miserable and trapped. Was this strategy or a panic attack?

Altman, we are told, is the extremist who wants to defund the police. And she did join that crazy bandwagon briefly, in a tweet posted after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

"That's a slap in the face to our members," says Wayne Blanchard of the State Troopers Fraternal Association, one of four police unions to back Kean.

Altman has put up a TV ad that shows her receiving endorsement from two elected county sheriffs in the district, both Democrats, along with her uncle, a retired cop in Long Island. She's deleted the tweet.

"I'm sorry, genuinely," she says now. "It was thoughtless, and bad policy. It was a reaction to that moment."

After talking with police chiefs and directors in the district - and no doubt consulting polls - she says she's seen the light: Cops need more funding, not less. For recruiting, for training, for community policing. "It's been a learning process for me," Altman says.

How do we sort this one out? For one, Altman has changed her position and apologized, and Kean is sticking with his endorsement of Trump, and his silence. So, only Altman's sin is eligible for forgiveness.

But let's also take a closer look at who the extremist is in this race. Kean is a Trump loyalist. He's shown none of the courage we've seen from other Republicans who have denounced Trump, from Liz Cheney to Chris Christie . He's choosing instead to be silent and obedient, voting with Trump every time.

That's extreme. This movement he supports took away a women's right to abortion, tried to overturn the election, promises to cancel the fight on climate change, and to hand Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. For a fuller list of crazy, consult Project 2025 .

And let's zero in on law and order. Trump promises to pardon the January 6 rioters who injured 141 police officers that day. Altman posted a stupid tweet. What's worse?

Kean, of course, won't discuss any of this, with the press or with voters in his district. I'm guessing he might say it's unfair to link him so tightly with Trump, that it's guilt by association. But if he salutes the leader and wears the uniform, isn't he part of the problem?

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski, who beat Kean in 2020, and lost a squeaker to him in 2022, puts the burden on Kean: If he wants to establish his independence from Trump, he has to speak up.

"If he wants to come out and say Trump is dead wrong to praise the January 6 rioters, that he's wrong to say he'll pardon them, and that he agrees with our nation's police chiefs that crime is down, that they're not lying to us, and that he respects the FBI, then he would have the moral authority to criticize something Sue Altman said five years ago," Malinowski says. "But he doesn't."

Letting Kean off the hook on that, he says, shows partisan bias. "Imagine if there were 50 people in prison for assaulting police officers, and a Democrat said they should be pardoned, that they are political prisoners and American heroes," Malinowski asks. "What would we be saying?"

This race is going to explode in the next month, as both candidates open their overstuffed war chests. Altman raised $2.1 million in the last quarter, the second-biggest quarterly harvest among Congressional candidates in state history, behind only Rep. Mikie Sherrill. That's on top of the $2.2 million she had in the bank at the end of June. Kean's latest numbers aren't in, but he had $3 million at the end of June , and is getting support from outside groups, including one funded by Elon Musk.

At this stage, Kean has an edge, according to the non-partisan Cook Political Report, but it remains competitive. Cook has switched its rating from "tossup" to "lean Republican". Dave Wasserman, who analyzes House races for Cook, said voters in the 7th don't know Altman yet, and that's hurting her more than any perception that she's an extremist.

"She still has a lot of work to do to make voters familiar with her, and that's tough because it's such an expensive district," he says.

I got to know Altman after she was dragged out of a Senate hearing in Trenton by State Police in 2019. She was a leader in the protest against George Norcross and the enormous tax breaks he and his friends received for making investments in Camden, now the subject of a criminal indictment. And it was a rowdy meeting, with spectators shouting on both sides.

Altman was singled out after Sen. Bob Smith asked State Police to restore order, a violation of her free speech rights that proved to be an embarrassment to the Legislature. Even Kean, then a state senator, said it was out line. It was the most shocking scene I've witnessed in the Statehouse.

The case against Altman was dropped after Trenton police said they lost the ticket she was issued that day. Convenient.

The pictures live, though, and one curiosity of this race is that both sides are using them in TV ads. For Altman, a professional basketball player in her day, the pictures of her struggling against troopers as they haul her out, the moment shows passion for the cause, and the Norcross indictment shows she was right. For Kean's crew, it may reinforce the charge of extremism.

But the extremist in this race doesn't shout or protest. He wears a tie and jacket. He doesn't say a word. But he's a loyal foot soldier of the most dangerous and reckless leader in American history. By comparison, one crazy tweet doesn't amount to much.

Tom Moran columns