Results: Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski defeated by Republican Thomas Kean Jr. in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District rematch

• Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski lost his seat to Republican Thomas Kean Jr. in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District.
• The state's 7th District covers all of Hunterdon County and sections of Warren, Morris, Somerset, Union, and Essex Counties as well.

Democratic incumbent Rep. Tom Malinowski lost his seat to Republican Thomas Kean Jr. in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District in a rematch of the 2020 election, where Malinowski defeated Kean by just over one percentage point.

Polls closed in the state at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

New Jersey's 7th Congressional District candidates

This race was a rematch of 2020, when Malinowski defeated Kean by about 5,000 votes — or 1.2 percentage points. It ranked among the nation's closest House races.

Malinowski is finishing up his second term in office after first being elected in 2018.

Malinowski, who immigrated to the United States from Poland when he was a child, sits on the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Homeland Security.

Prior to serving in Congress, Malinowski was the assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights, and labor during the Obama administration. He's also previously worked as a senior director on the National Security Council and as chief advocate at nonprofit Human Rights Watch.

In March 2021, Insider revealed that Malinowski had failed to disclose dozens of personal stock trades in violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012.

While he ultimately placed his stock assets in a blind trust and backed an effort to ban federal lawmakers from trading stocks, Republicans have hammered Malinowski during the race for his disclosure failures. The independent Office of Congressional Ethics referred Malinowski's case to the bipartisan Committee on House Ethics, citing "substantial reason to believe" he violated federal conflicts-of-interest law, but to date, the Committee on House Ethics has not publicly ruled on the matter.

Kean is a former member of the New Jersey State Senate, where he was voted by his peers to become the state Senate minority leader.

Political service runs in Kean's family — he's the grandson of US Rep. Robert Kean and the son of former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, Sr.

Voting history for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District

The state's 7th District covers all of Hunterdon County and sections of Warren, Morris, Somerset, Union, and Essex Counties as well.

Joe Biden had a 10 percentage point margin of victory of President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election under the district's previous boundaries.

The money race

Federal records compiled by nonpartisan research organization OpenSecrets indicate Malinowski had raised $8.32 million, spent $6.75 million, and has $1.61 million cash on hand as of October 19.

Kean had raised $3.96 million, spent $3.2 million, and has $849,000 cash on hand as of October 19.

As of November 5, super PACs, national party committees, and other non-candidate groups had together spent about $8.3 million to advocate for or against the race's candidates, including during its primary election phase.

Here, Republicans had a major advantage: The Congressional Leadership Fund, a national Republican hybrid PAC that backed Kean, alone accounted for more than half that spending.

House Majority PAC, a Democratic hybrid PAC that supported Malinowski, was the second-highest spender at $1.38 million.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which backed Kean, spent the third-most in the race — more than $1.35 million.

What experts say

The Cook Political Report rated New Jersey's 7th Congressional District race as "lean Republican". Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics rated the race as "leans Republican". Inside Elections rated it as "tilt Republican."