President Trump’s recently-signed budget bill is a two-edged sword: it’s a political victory for the president, but it has also given beleaguered Democrats a cohesive message. At least they hope so, as they plan some campaign firepower in the next midterm elections in 2026.

“Democrats smell blood in the water,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics. “Democrats see a strong midterm environment shaping up for them,”

Rasmussen pointed to New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District and two-term incumbent Tom Kean Jr., who voted for the Trump’s budget bill. It’s helped make Kean a special target for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which listed CD-7 as one of its 35 “Republican-held districts in play” — even though Trump carried the district by a point last November.

“This is a very purple terrain,” said Eli Cousins, a committee spokesman. “This is a district that has swung back and forth in recent years. And so what’s different about this time really is the fact that Congressman Kean Jr. has voted for one of the most unpopular and politically toxic bills that we have seen in a very, very long time.”

State officials project 350,000 New Jersey residents will likely lose health care under the Trump law’s Medicaid funding cuts and 400,000 more could see their federal food assistance shrink. The committee has already posted fundraising websites for Democrats in target districts and launched digital attack ads.

“You’re going to see the best Democratic candidates coming off the bench,” Rasmussen said. “They’re going to get their tier one candidates, because the perception is among candidates that this is going to be a good environment for them to run in.”

So far, five Democrats have announced they’ll run in next June’s 7th Congressional District primary. Among the first to declare was pharmaceutical executive Rebecca Bennett, who like U.S. Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill is a former U.S. Navy veteran chopper pilot.

“Being able to bring that piece of my experience to the table, my experience working in the business sector, working in health care, and then also being a mom of two kids and understanding the challenges that families are facing,” Bennett said.

Bennett went to school on the GI bill and said she has connected with veterans groups. She has so far raised close to $1 million  in campaign cash.

“I don’t come from a powerful political family or a wealthy family, but that is a strength for this campaign,” she said. “I fundamentally understand the challenges that families are facing in a way that I don’t think Tom Kean Jr. ever will.”

The most recent to join the race is Dr. Tina Shah, a New Jersey-born doctor who served as a medical and veterans advisor in the the Obama and Biden administrations. She raised more than a quarter million dollars the first day of her campaign and calls herself a moderate Democrat.

“I’ve demonstrated that I can work across the aisle, and I think that’s what this district wants,” Shah said.

Shah described treating a diabetic patient who got sick because he rationed his insulin due to looming Medicaid cuts. She said she feared thousands of others will suffer from the new law.

“What we’re watching is the active dismantling of U.S. health care,” she said. “We’re watching Tom Kean Jr. rubber-stamping Trump’s agenda. We’re watching misinformation spread. And I’m just not willing to sit down anymore, so I’m stepping up as a doctor to restore science and sanity into DC.”

The other Democrats candidates so far are former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, businessman Brian Varela, and former Summit Councilman Greg Vartan.

Whoever wins the primary faces a tough campaign. Kean last won re-election by five points in the nation’s most expensive congressional race, raising $970,000 in the first quarter of 2025 alone. His campaign cites his vote for Trump’s budget as “…fully restoring the SALT [state and local tax] deduction for every middle class family, securing our borders, and protecting the integrity of vital safety net programs, like Medicaid, for their intended beneficiaries.

“Make no mistake,” Kean’s campaign said, “his political opponents are creating a vulnerability for themselves by advocating for tax hikes and open borders.”