NJ 6 Midterm Watch: Kiley Comes Out Swinging Against Pallone

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — In December, Monmouth County Commissioner Sue Kiley said she was "strongly considering" running in the 2022 midterms against Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat who has long held New Jersey's Sixth District seat in Washington.

And on Tuesday of this week, Kiley, 67, officially announced her candidacy. A staunch Republican, Kiley released her first public campaign video on YouTube, which you can watch below.

"I'm challenging Frank Pallone, a career congressman who has become a millionaire while in Washington for 34 years, because I am terrified of the radical direction that he, Nancy Pelosi, Phil Murphy and Joe Biden are taking our country," said Kiley. "We are all witnessing firsthand the devastation that incompetent, so-called progressive government causes in the quality of our lives. I say enough. I invited you to join my campaign."

"NJ 6" stretches from Carteret and Woodbridge into Edison, New Brunswick and down to Asbury Park. It hugs the Raritan Bay coastline, including towns such as Aberdeen, Matawan, Hazlet, North Middletown, Sea Bright and West Long Branch. In 2020, the last time his seat was up for election, Pallone defeated a Republican immigrant from Nigeria who challenged him, Christian Onuoha, with Pallone getting 199,648 votes and Onuoha getting 126,760.

In every presidential election since 2000, NJ's Sixth District has voted for a Democrat for president: Gore, Kerry, Obama twice, Clinton and then Biden. However, political watchers nationwide predict the 2022 midterms could spell danger for sitting Democrats, especially pointing to the very narrow victory for Gov. Phil Murphy against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli this past fall.

"I know Pallone has supporters, but I don't think he has as many supporters as he had in the past," Kiley told Patch in December when she was first mulling her candidacy.

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Pallone is an ally of President Joe Biden and he was a fierce critic of former President Trump, who Kiley strongly backed. In her five-minute campaign video Tuesday, Kiley criticized the direction the country has gone in one year into Biden's presidency, citing problems of illegal immigration, skyrocketing inflation and the drug addiction crisis — a topic that hits close to home for many in working-class Raritan Bay towns.

"How did we become a country where the working family continues to struggle with increasing gas prices, increasing price of food and other goods, empty shelves in the stores and too many people out of work?" asked Kiley in her video. "Our government continues to allow illegal immigration unabated at our borders at a time when our resources are stretched very thin, and we are battling a pandemic and an addiction crisis.

"We have no vetting and no testing of any kind for the hundreds of thousands entering our country illegally. And then they are subsequently put on planes and flown to sanctuary states like New Jersey in the middle of the night," she said. "We are a country of immigrants. Our country welcomes over a million legal immigrants every year, more than any other county in the world, through a legal process. Our government is considering giving these illegal families $450,000 after violating the law to get into the United States. We give our veterans far less than that. And we give nothing to the people who come here legally."

Kiley is referring to this policy reported by the Washington Post, where the Biden administration was considering giving payouts of $450,000 per person, with some families potentially receiving $1 million, to families and children separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump. President Biden has since dismissed the idea and said in November "it's not going to happen."

Pallone, 70, is originally from Long Branch. He started out as a Long Branch councilman and has represented this area of New Jersey in Congress since 1988. His brother, John Pallone, is also a Democrat and is currently the mayor of Long Branch.

"My record in Congress speaks for itself and makes it clear that I fight for my constituents every day," said Pallone when asked to respond to Kiley's criticism. "I've championed legislation in this Congress to lower prescription drug and health care costs, repair and rebuild our infrastructure, and protect the environment. I'm going to keep up my work on these important issues and look forward to earning the support of voters this fall."

The Asbury Park Press reports that Kiley will face another Republican this June in the primary, Rik Mehta, who has ran in the past for U.S. Senate in New Jersey and lost. Mehta said he will move to the Iselin section of Woodbridge to seek the Republican nomination for NJ 6, reports the newspaper.

Kiley got her start as Hazlet mayor and is now deputy director of the Monmouth County Board of Commissioners. She used to be a nurse and then moved into medical sales and marketing. She is married to a retired Hazlet police officer, and the couple raised five children in a middle-class home in Hazlet, a blue-collar town. She ran for Hazlet town council after Superstorm Sandy devastated the Bayshore.

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