NJ 4th House District Democratic Primary: Rachel Peace

New Jersey's 4th District Congressional election race is underway, and there are two Democrats on the ballot in the June Primary election.

The Primary Election is Tuesday, June 2. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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In New Jersey, voters can only cast ballots in the primary election for the party in which they are registered. Unaffiliated voters can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary by declaring their intent when they go to vote.

The Democratic candidates seeking to unseat Republican Chris Smith for the 4th District seat, a two-year term in the House of Representatives, are John Blake and Rachel Peace.

Patch asked both candidates the same set of questions. Here are the answers from Rachel Peace.

Name: Rachel Peace

Age: 33

Family: Single mom, one child

Education: 2010 graduate of Brick Memorial High School. Bachelor's degree in public relations from Hofstra University in 2014 with a double minor in drama and sociology.

Occupation and employer: Founder and owner of Hyperfocused Communications, a public relations and marketing consultancy.

Any prior elected office: No

Campaign website: peace4shore.com/

What do you believe Congress can and needs to do to address health care affordability as premiums skyrocket and subsidies for those who sought coverage under the Affordable Care
Act are slated to disappear?

Congress CAN do a lot, it’s a matter of if it WILL. As things currently stand, our elected officials lack the political will to accomplish much of anything for struggling Americans. In the immediate, they need to focus on relief for those experiencing skyrocketing premiums. New Jersey residents on the marketplace are experiencing a 174% increase on average (about $2,780 more per year out of pocket). That’s unacceptable, and that was a political choice.

Saving the subsidies for the marketplace would have cost $30B, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Instead, the Pentagon has spent a confirmed $29B and counting on the unauthorized war in Iran. That is bad enough, but we also know 20% of New Jersey residents, my son and I included, are recipients of NJ Family Care (aka Medicaid), which was deeply eroded by the passage of H.R.1 last year.

I know from firsthand experience how essential low-cost and no-cost coverage is. We need to expand this to more people, not take it away. Even as the richest nation on Earth, we have more medical bankruptcies than any other country, and millions are uninsured or underinsured. All this while the
insurance companies make record profits.

I’ll support rescission efforts in Congress to undo damage, reinstate ACA premium tax credits, and expand Medicaid back to and beyond pre-HR1 levels. BUT we also need big-picture health-care reform.

Our campaign is grounded in the premise that everyone should be able to see their doctor when they are sick. The U.S. is one of the few developed nations without guaranteed health care and despite sky-high costs, we have troubling rates of maternal and infant mortality.

We can easily review what does and doesn’t work across decades worth of data on the different systems that exist in every other developed nation, because it’s tracked by respected organizations like the Commonwealth Fund. That will allow us to ACTUALLY make America healthy.

While this feels out of reach to many Americans, it is within reach and will actually be possible once we overturn Citizens United, the ruling that allowed dark money to flow into politics unchecked.

The midterm election of 2026 represents the moment to bring sweeping change to the nation. Electing as many grassroots candidates as possible who haven’t taken money from health-care corporations, private insurance companies, or special interests will shift the balance of power in Congress. With
enough regular people like me in office, we will build a system that actually works for everyone.

Our generation will finally deliver on the promise America made to the international community 80 years ago this summer, that we recognize health care as a human right.

What should Congress do to improve affordability and what would you do to make that happen?

Everything is too expensive. Tackling the cost-of-living crisis is the issue I hear more than anything else when I’m canvassing. No American should struggle to pay for our most basic survival needs, housing, child care, groceries, utilities, transportation. I say “our” because I face the same issues as everyone else and decided to do something about it— for all of us.

I’ll pursue implementation of programs like Invest Atlanta’s HOME, Atlanta 4.0, which provides a 3.5% down payment grant that never needs to be repaid. I’ll also work towards eliminating bureaucratic red tape to access rental assistance and childcare support and work to increase the income threshold for eligibility to match the current reality. Americans also need a living wage guarantee, and legislation to achieve it.

The Raise the Wage Act is a great start but unfortunately doesn’t go far enough. Working people and families are being crushed by skyrocketing costs on just about everything, and even in NJ where we’ve already increased our minimum wage, it doesn’t line up to a living wage.

A true living wage has actually already been calculated for various family structures in both Monmouth and Ocean County, and it’s more than $15 or even $17 an hour. Putting it into that context; it's impossible to defend the stagnant federal minimum wage of just $7.25 an hour.

Think of it this way— in the summer of 2010, I was between high school and college, making $8 an hour to care for eight 1- and 2-year-olds, some with special needs, at a daycare in Ocean County. For states that haven’t passed increased minimum wages since that time, it’s unthinkable that anyone could support themselves, let alone a family, on LESS than those hourly wages.

Last year, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, proved our elected officials are wildly out of touch with the reality of working people and said the quiet part out loud when it comes to corruption.

He argued members of Congress should be allowed to “engage in some stock trading”; to “take care of their family” — because congressional salaries have been frozen since 2009, and have lost roughly 31% of their value to inflation, according to The Hill.

Let’s call this what it is. Members of Congress are arguing they should be able to engage in insider trading, while complaining about their base salary of $174K. If they need a raise, don’t the American people!? This is all absurd and ridiculously tone-deaf in the eyes of everyday hardworking Ame—ricans
struggling to get by. I know because I am one. I know that regardless of party, my neighbors are craving someone who lives with the same struggles they do, understands their priorities, and will fight for them.

I’ll be pursuing full funding for bill assistance programs, in addition to reintroducing — and expanding — tax credits like those provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, especially the child tax credit.

I’m also interested in scaling successful pilot programs. Programs exist at the local level all over the nation that have enjoyed bipartisan support. I want to open up a call for applications among pilots like these; and identify initiatives that require limited administrative burden (no one likes bloat and bureaucracy), that families across tax brackets participated in, that made a tangible difference— then
fund and scale them.

A good example is Rx Kids, which provides cash payments during pregnancy and the first year of life, which research has shown to reduce stress and improve outcomes for families, and we could model nationwide.

The importance of making life bearable for regular people cannot be overstated. The bottom line is that we don’t just need to freeze our cost of living; we need to lower it by making tax credits permanent, rolling out new initiatives, and last but not least, going after corporate bullies who’ve inflated prices for CEO and stakeholder profit by strengthening antitrust legislation and baking in enforcement and penalties for non- compliance.

It has been months since the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. What is your plan to ensure the Justice Department complies with the law?

The government should be truthful, accountable, and transparent. Our Department of Justice has failed to meet the demands of their duties, the survivors, and an overwhelming majority nationwide. Chris Smith has also failed in this moment, and history will remember.

He may have voted for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but he waited until long after bold and brave members spoke out before it was politically acceptable. Instead of using his platform to scrutinize the investigation, keep the pressure on his colleagues, or demand answers for failed (or intentional) lack of redactions that essentially doxxed vulnerable survivors, he has been relatively silent.

This is a strange contradiction for someone with a historic record of outspokenness on anti-trafficking. Someone who wrote those laws, claims credit for Epstein’s arrest, but isn’t the loudest champion of survivors. It makes you wonder why.

Survivors need our consistent and proactive support. In
Congress, that means standing with them long-term, both publicly and legislatively. It means leading the charge to address corruption when it occurs — even the highest levels, even when the executive branch pressures you not to do your job. It means demanding the release of the remaining files from the approximately 6 million pages of evidence identified by the DOJ, of which only 3.5 million have so far been released. It means prosecuting offenders in a non-partisan way, reexamining the laws that exist, and building in preventive measures so nothing like this ever happens again. It means legislating and leading NOW, not leaning on past accomplishments.

Both of you are competing to defeat Chris Smith, who has represented New Jersey in the House since 1981. What makes you the better candidate to replace him?

Chris Smith was elected to Congress at a time when New Jerseyans were tired of corruption and wanted a fresh face (during the Abscam Probe in 1980). 46 years later, and that’s exactly the same sentiment in the district today. People want change: NOW. Smith is tied with Hal Rogers as the longest-serving member of the House NATIONWIDE. It is high time that he should step aside for a new generation of leadership: one that is committed to “a better way” than “the way things have always been.” A leader ready to step up for our district and our country.

We need regular people in Congress, and for regular people to get them there. I don’t own stocks, and my campaign doesn't accept donations from dark money or from corporate PACs.
It’s not just that I understand the issues conceptually, it's that I’ve actually lived them. I’m not a woman of wealth or privilege. I’m someone who has struggled to overcome adversity, risen above my circumstances, and navigated a system that needs reimagining. If we want to improve what’s not working for people, we need those very same people on the inside.

I’m many things — a millennial who was born and raised here at the Shore, a 33-year-old small business owner, a domestic violence survivor and single mom to a 5-year-old. I’m not in this for acclaim or political ambition, I’m in this to help people. We need someone in office who has passion, energy, and vision. Someone with the ability to inspire, someone who was already out in the community standing up for their neighbors before even considering this role, someone who can be trusted to deliver for their neighbors.

What do you hope to bring to voters and to Washington if you are elected to serve in the House of Representatives?

I hope to bring relief to voters who are drowning under the weight of meeting their basic needs. I hope to restore faith in Democracy for voters who feel no one in government cares or can be trusted and the system is failing them.

The philosophy we campaign with is the same one I would govern with. I know that disillusionment unites so many of us, and I’m working to change that by taking the same grassroots, people-driven approach to D.C. There HAS to be an expansion of the “big tent” because people are overwhelmingly frustrated with corporate Dems and politicians who are bought.

We need a political ecosystem that embraces progressive values, engages unaffiliated voters, connects with people who don’t bother voting because they feel it doesn’t matter, and, yes, even allows disaffected Republicans to break ties with a party that looks nothing like it once did.

If I am elected to serve, my goal is to reimagine what government can be and do, who it is for, and who gets a say. I want to be someone who opens the door for more people to be involved, to make it so anyone with a heart for the people can step up and make a difference whether or not they have
connections, power, or big money. If you can see it, you can be it.