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Let's focus on where you stand in the Democratic Party. There's been quite a bit of criticism of the Democratic Party lately about where all the moderates have gone, because you are seeing such an uprising in terms of the DSA and the party moving farther left in some in some regards. Congressman Kaine suggested that your positions are proof that you would align with the far left of your party. And he suggests that you're not the moderate that you want the voters in this district to believe that you are. What would you say to him about that? What would you say to voters? So what I would say to voters is that I served in this military for 15 years and ultimately the only oath I've ever taken is to the Constitution of the United States. And so the reason why I'm running for Congress and why I want to represent all of us is because I deeply love this country and I Believe in the future of this country and this is also about what version of the country are we going to leave for my daughters and the next generation. My girls are 4 and 7, and I really consider my life a version of the American dream. Do you think that the party is jogging too far to the left, and do you worry that there is an absence of moderates now? I will say I'm a very pragmatic common sense person who throughout my entire life has found ways to solve problems and move the ball forward, and that's the mindset that I'm bringing to this campaign and then to office and I put out a bunch of policy proposals to talk about what we can actually do to be able to tackle the cost of living and take on the corruption in Washington and it's because I think we need to do. The generation of leadership in Washington that really understands the urgency of this moment is going to be able to act accordingly. Tom Kaine Jr. has been in office for 25 years, and I would argue that we're not any better off than we were 25 years ago. I want to talk about ICE enforcement. It was front and center again this past week. Some very high profile stories in the headlines. Some of your colleagues feel that ICE should be abolished. Others want reform, but they feel that immigration enforcement is still a critical job that needs to be a task that needs to be undertaken in the country. Where do you fall on this? I do not think that ICE should be abolished. Taking a step back, I think that we need to have strong borders. If we have violent criminals in this country, they should be deported. And also what ICE is doing, they're operating well outside of the law of the land. We cannot have masked unidentified agents on American streets. And so ultimately I look at this as we need to hold ICE accountable like any other federal law enforcement agency and ultimately it's about making sure we have good order and discipline. The organization because what I hear from our local law enforcement officials is that they've spent 20 years building relationships with people in the community and people are scared to go to them now because of what's going on, you know, I'll just add to we do have the Roxbury detention facility in the district. This is something that people in the district have been in vocal opposition to. There's a 7-0 Republican town council in Roxbury that does not want that detention facility there. Congressman Tom Kaine Jr. The first time he said anything about this was the debate about a week ago, but I've been very vocal in standing in solidarity with that Republican town council and making sure that we're going to oppose that detention facility from going in. And we've been seeing reports over the past couple of weeks that, and this is the allegation from advocates in the area, that the facility, despite a judge's order, otherwise, is actually in use in some capacity. What was your reaction when you heard that? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that I've heard to your point from a lot of our, you know, grassroots leaders across the district and certainly in the Roxbury area and so we need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to work with the state government and local governments to make sure that we're keeping that detention facility from actually going in. If you do flip this House seat, and again this is being watched nationally right now just because of the implications, I mean really the balance of power could shift here and that's obviously what the Democrats are hoping right now. If you do flip this seat, what would be your first three tasks? You know, usually I ask people what would be your day one in office, but What would be your first three tasks focusing specifically on the district, things that could have real impact for the people of the district? Yeah, so really it's all about the cost of living crisis that I've heard loud and clear from people. And so number 1 is undoing the cuts that were done from the One Big Beautiful bill. That's why tens of thousands of people in our district are losing access to their health insurance. That's why all the rest of us are seeing our health insurance premiums go up. So undoing the cuts from that, which Tom Kaine Jr. was the deciding vote on. You is making sure that data centers are paying their fair share for energy prices because I don't know about you, but our utility bill went up by like 200 bucks last summer, you know, my husband was like, did our house break? Like what's going on? And so we need to make sure that data centers are paying their fair share. And so my proposal is that there's a separate rate class for data centers to make sure that they are paying their fair share. And then finally, childcare is a crisis in this country right now. You know, there's only 5 moms with kids under 6 in Congress right now. And so. Talk about the child care crisis. I think part of the reason why we're not solving these issues is because we need people at the table to understand these challenges. I was talking to a mom the other day who is a teacher, and her mom, they have a 2 year old and a 4-year-old, and they're paying $4200 a month for their kids to be in childcare. I mean, it is, that's a mortgage. It's an astronomical amount of money, and there are so many families that are having fewer kids or they're dropping out of the workforce because they just can't afford to pay for it. And so my proposal is that we cap the cost of childcare at 7%. We pay for that by undoing the Trump. Tax costs on the top 1%, but I just use that as those are some of the examples of the things that I want to do. I also just add that I want to make sure we have the best constituent services in the country to make sure that we're able to get people access to the government services they deserve. Uh, your platform, part of your platform is also talking about expanding energy sources, uh, to, to make sure that there is more energy available. Uh, you also spoke about more affordable housing. How do you, how do you accomplish something like that when the state of New Jersey hasn't been able to. Usher in more affordable housing and it's been struggling to find ways to fulfill its obligations for decades now. So I'd say on the energy piece, I'm a former chemical engineer, so I always like to nerd out about energy stuff, and I think that ultimately we need to make sure we need more supply. And this is a piece where we have to move faster. We have to show the government can be more efficient and effective because right now PJM is our grid operator and it takes 8 years to get a project from initial submission to actually going live and so we have to fix that. And ultimately I think it's working with the state and the federal government together to be able to drive those changes and then you know to the housing piece it's I would say it's similar of what can we do at the federal level from a financing perspective to make sure for example people can have access to first time home buyer credit or other programs to make sure people get access to be able to be that part of the American dream of buying a house, you know, and being able to solve these problems.

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I want to go back to that uh insider NJ STEM site research poll that I mentioned a few minutes ago. It revealed that the issues that were most important to the people in the district, uh, were illegal immigration, and that was tied with Social Security and Medicare, and then that's followed by affordability, grocery, and household goods. Did it surprise you that that illegal immigration and uh tied as as a top issue in the district? Not really. I met a voter the other day who told me she said, I like Trump. I like ICE. I don't like Kaine. So I was like, OK, let's talk about it, you know. And so I think ultimately it goes back to the piece you were talking about before about we need, we failed to have meaningful immigration reform in this country for over 30 years and the economy looks fundamentally different than it did 30 years ago. And so we need to make sure that we are. Making sure we have a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and people like that and also we need secure borders and we need to make sure that violent criminals are deported. You know, when I talk about the American dream, part of it is that people are safe in their communities and so that is a really critical part of this to make sure that people feel safe. In-person early voting begins October 24th. Uh, what is it that you are going to be doing in these last couple weeks? In the run up to this time when the polls actually open, so we're going to be out meeting with voters all across the district. We are doing a town hall tour. We just did our first stop in Hackettstown over the weekend. We're going to be all over the place trying to meet as many people as we can and ultimately making sure that we're getting our message out and talking about what we can do to make people's lives better. Rebecca Bennett, thank you so much for talking to us, and I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Now, not long after our sit-down, we got word that Rebecca Bennett is facing a Federal Election Commission complaint. The NJGOP saying, quote, Rebecca Bennett claims that she's keeping corporate PAC money out of her campaign, but a new complaint filed by the New Jersey GOP alleges her campaign's fundraising arrangement crossed federal election law. Bennett's partnership with a corporate-funded super PAC to the tune of $1 million deserves scrutiny. Bennett. The campaign responded saying quote, Throughout this campaign Rebecca has practiced what she's preached by not taking a dime from corporate PACs and divesting all of her individual stocks. Meanwhile, Tom Kaine Jr. has traded millions of dollars in stocks and taken hundreds of thousands in corporate PAC money since taking office. As we close out the show, we want you, our viewers, to know that we at News 12 have repeatedly invited Congressman Kaine to join us at a location and time of his choosing, but we have been met with radio silence. The voters deserve to hear from both candidates, and we at News 12 have done everything in our power to make that happen. And that'll do it for this special vote 2026 edition of Power and Politics. I'm Eric Lanskroner. We thank you for watching. We'll see you again next time.

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Democratic candidate for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District Rebecca Bennett joins the show this week.

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