Sue Altman (Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for MoveOn)
Democratic New Jersey congressional candidate Sue Altman claimed in September that she had "broken" with the Working Families Party on a range of issues—part of her effort to distance herself from her progressive past as a state chapter leader. But two weeks later, the far-left group began dumping more than $735,000 into the swing-district candidate's election bid.
Altman headed the Working Families Party's New Jersey chapter from 2019 to 2023, but she told the New Jersey Globe she was never beholden to the party's national wing.
"We were a separate organization; we have a separate legal entity, a separate budget, I raised all our own money," Altman said during the Sept. 11 interview. "So I didn't have to do everything Working Families National was doing, and there are issues to this day that I have publicly and privately broken with them on."
"Honestly, it hasn't really come up, because I think people see me as an independent voice, and that holds true across the board," Altman added.
Two weeks later, the Working Families Party PAC spent $300,000 on digital ads supporting Altman and continued bankrolling campaign efforts in the weeks after, financial disclosures show. In total, the group has spent $550,000 on digital ads, $110,000 on direct mail, $55,000 in in-kind expenditures for canvasing, and $10,500 on phone and texting campaigns supporting the Democrat's congressional bid.
The Working Families Party hadn't spent any money on Altman's election before Sept. 25, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The sudden spending spree appears to be a last-ditch effort as the Democrat's neck-and-neck race against Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr. approaches the finish line. An Oct. 16 Monmouth University poll found that 46 percent of registered voters will definitely or probably vote for Kean, while 44 percent will do the same for Altman.
Amid the funding deluge, Altman indicated that she wasn't getting enough support from the Democratic Party. The Working Families Party, meanwhile, has a history of propping up far-left primary candidates challenging establishment Democrats.
Altman has spent much of her campaign distancing herself from her progressive roots, at times making conflicting comments. She didn't specify to the Globe which of her positions diverged from the Working Families Party's platform while she headed the local chapter. She also said her values have remained "consistent."
But a Washington Free Beacon review found that the Working Families Party, the New Jersey chapter, and Altman's personal views on far-left policies were frequently in alignment—and that the Democrat's values have, in fact, been inconsistent. All three, for example, for years supported reparations—a topic Altman avoided discussing for months after launching her congressional campaign.
"Create a #reparations commission in NJ. Why? Because NJ had slavery. By 1625 enslaved African people were here," Altman wrote in 2021.
She finally weighed in just weeks before the election, reversing course. Altman gave a thumbs-down when she was asked during an Oct. 13 debate whether she believed the government should grant black Americans "some form of reparations."
"I want to talk about the reparations thing. So, New Jersey remains a segregated state, and I think it's important to study the ways in which we can stop segregation and stop the perpetuity of poverty in this country," Altman said. "While I don't believe in reparations, I do think we need to understand how not to repeat history and how to break the cycle of poverty in our country."
The Working Families Party and the New Jersey chapter under Altman's leadership similarly aligned on other progressive priorities. The local group, for example, wanted to "shut down" Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the national wing led a campaign to "abolish" the agency. Both organizations have also pushed to ban fracking, as well as new oil and gas leasing and drilling on federal land and waters.
Altman did say during her Globe interview that she regretted supporting the defund the police movement—but that break from the Working Families Party only came after leaving the New Jersey chapter.
"I had a tweet [in 2020] in which I used the hashtag #DefundThePolice," she said. "I think it was unnecessary; I think it turned out to be a very harmful hashtag, not just for the movement in losing credibility, but also for the men and women in law enforcement who are actively trying to do a good job."
Altman did not return a request for comment.
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