AREA — Next week, with half the Senate and Congress up for election, area voters will choose a new Senator to represent New Jersey along with Congressional representatives in the 7th and 10th Congressional Districts.

Following the lengthy scandal, trial, conviction and eventual resignation of disgraced longtime Senator Robert Menendez, New Jersey will now choose between Congressman Andy Kim (D) and businessman Curtis Bashaw (R) to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.

Congressman Kim is a three-term elected official for the Third Congressional District, which covers portions of Burlington, Mercer and Monmouth Counties. The congressman is a Rhodes Scholar who worked as a civilian employee of The Pentagon prior to running for office. He and his wife have two sons whom they are raising in the same community in which Rep. Kim grew up.

Mr. Bashaw holds an MBA from Wharton, and is the founder of Cape Resorts, which owns multiple resort properties, including Congress Hall in Cape May, where he once worked as a bellhop. He resides in Cape May with his husband. If successful, Mr. Bashaw would be the first openlygay Republican Senator to be elected.

Both candidates are pro-choice, have pledged support for Israel and Ukraine, and seek to lower healthcare costs. The candidates differ on their stances regarding immigration reform and the economy.

In District 7, Congressman Tom Kean, Jr. (R) faces challenger Sue Altman. The two candidates have traded barbs in a slew of TV ads over the past several weeks, each accusing the other of being to the extreme left and right of the political spectrum, with the candidates raising over $10 million, and millions more being spent by PACs on both sides. The district’s voter registration leans Republican since its redistricting two years ago, which aided Rep. Kean’s defeat of Democrat Congressman Tom Malinowski in 2022.

Rep. Kean, a Westfield resident, is in his first congressional term. Prior to his run for Congress, he was a New Jersey State legislator representing the 21st District for 20 years in the Assembly and Senate. Rep. Kean is a graduate of Dartmouth College and holds a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from Tufts University.

Ms. Altman was a teacher and a basketball coach before serving as the executive director of the New Jersey Working FamiliesAlliance. She holds degrees from Columbia and Oxford Universities.

This will mark the second regular election cycle for Cranford and Garwood in the newly-minted 10th District following the death of Congressman Donald Payne, Jr. earlier this year.

LaMonica McIver, who fended off a slew of challengers in the Democratic Primary, is a former Newark councilwoman and was elected to fill the seat in a special election. Prior to her political career, Rep. McIver was employed by the Montclair Public Schools. Rep. McIver is being challenged by Republican Carmen Bucco, a businessman who is a former Belleville school board member.

At the county level, incumbent Democrats Kimberly Palmieri-Mouded, Alexander Mirabella and James Baker, Jr., will be vying for three new three-year terms on the Union County Board of County Commissioners against Republican challengers Mary O’Connor (a former member of the Cranford Township Committee who ran for a seat on the commissioner board in 2021), Jeanne Kingsley and Michael Petrucci.

Republicans have not held a seat on the county board since the mid 1990s.