4 Republicans Seek To Challenge Rep. Frank Pallone In 2022 Midterms

MATAWAN, NJ — The 2022 midterms are looming!

Political watchers speculate that Democratic lawmakers nationwide will take a hit this November, as inflation and gas prices surge to new highs, war rages in Ukraine and immigration problems continue at the U.S. southern border.

Here in Central Jersey, Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ6) will seek re-election this year. Pallone has represented New Jersey's Sixth District in Washington, D.C. for the past 34 years.

Pallone is one of New Jersey's elected officials who has been in office the longest. He was first elected to represent Central Jersey in Congress in 1988 and voters have re-elected him every year since.

No Democrats will challenge Pallone. Four Republicans are currently battling it out to run against him in November.

The four Republicans are:

• Former Hazlet mayor and current Monmouth County Commissioner Sue Kiley. She is the candidate endorsed by the Middlesex County Republican Party and the Monmouth County Republican Party.
• Lawyer Gregg Mele. He was the 2021 Libertarian Party nominee for NJ governor
• Tom Toomey, a millennial who has worked for Thompson Reuters, Samsung and Workforce. He used to work for the Republican National Committee.
• Rik Mehta, a small-business owner who recently moved to the Iselin section of Woodbridge. In the past, he ran for U.S. Senate in New Jersey and lost. He is now trying for Congress.

The primary election is June 7 and the general election will be Nov. 8. So whichever of these four Republicans wins the primary in June will be the GOP candidate who takes on Pallone in November.

The Sixth District stretches from Carteret and Woodbridge into Edison, New Brunswick and down to Long Branch and Asbury Park. It includes many Raritan Bay towns, including Aberdeen, Matawan, Hazlet, Union Beach, Keansburg, North Middletown and Sea Bright. From Wikipedia, here are all the towns in New Jersey's Sixth Congressional District.

For decades, this part of New Jersey was considered a blue-collar district, with most of its residents working in factories. However, as the factories closed, those jobs have been replaced by IT industries, with a surge of new immigrants moving in in the past 20 years, particularly Asian and Indian residents.

In late February, Republican candidate Mele blasted Gov. Phil Murphy's decision to send the New Jersey National Guard to Washington, D.C. for the trucker convoy protest against vaccine mandates. Mele called the move "a dramatic overreaction" by Gov. Murphy and "an effort to restrict freedom of speech and the right to assemble." Read his comments here.

Prior: NJ 6 Midterm Watch: Kiley Comes Out Swinging Against Pallone

NJ6 Congress Candidate Blasts Murphy's Sending Nat'l Guard To DC

You can watch Kiley speak in this five-minute campaign video released in January, where she criticized the direction the country has gone in one year into Biden's presidency, citing problems of illegal immigration, skyrocketing inflation and the drug addiction crisis, which she said was made worse under pandemic lockdowns.

In the last midterms, in 2020, Pallone defeated a Republican immigrant from Nigeria who challenged him, Christian Onuoha, but only by 73,000 votes: Pallone got 199,648 votes and Onuoha got 126,760.

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