Democratic House candidate Sue Altman changes her mind on police and public safety: Social media posts resurface
New Jersey Democratic House candidate Sue Altman has repudiated several anti-law enforcement policies, including the “Defund the Police” movement, which she supported in previous social media posts.
The former head of the progressive Garden State Working Families Party has modified her past positions, saying NJ Spotlight News in an interview last week that he is “not in favor of defunding the police.”
“I think it was a very silly hashtag that emerged in the middle of the pandemic and went viral on social media,” he said. “I believe in a comprehensive vision of public safety that includes all stakeholders.”
But as her campaign to unseat Republican Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey's 7th District was heating up last fall, a Democratic campaign operative tweeted a screenshot showing that He supported defunding the police — a post that has since been deleted.
“New Jersey sheriffs… are overwhelmingly white and male, embedded in our massive county government, and control HUGE budgets,” Altman posted on Twitter, now X.
“Those of us working on #DefundThePolice in Jersey should consider looking here,” she added.
The screenshot did not include a date, but the profile picture matches Altman's Twitter profile photo from 2019 to 2021, according to archived posts from his account.
Another post by the agent, Checkmate Advisors president Steve Ayscue, criticized Altman for celebrating the release from prison of A convicted cop killer.
In July 2020, he said it was “awesome” that the Working Families Party was pushing to “fight to shift resources from police to real community investments.”
Other publications from the same period before Altman's run for office criticized the supposed “fringe benefits” available to “white male-dominated professions like police officers and firefighters.”
He also encouraged others to attend a “demonstration for police reform” in June 2021 organized by a left-wing activist who supports repair payments for black Americans, a policy for which he has also expressed his support.
Another pro-defund-the-police group, Reproductive Freedom for All, endorsed Altman’s 2024 bid earlier this year, according to the Washington Free Beacon. reported.
Kean had an eight percentage point advantage both Altman and Democratic primary candidate Jason Blazakis in January, according to an internal campaign poll commissioned by the Blazakis campaign ahead of the state's primary election in June.
He still holds a fundraising advantage over Altman, with the former reporting a campaign fund of more than $3 million according to second-quarter 2024 filings and the latter having $2.2 million in cash on hand.
The 7th Congressional District is currently Classified as an undecided vote by the Republican Party by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, one of two dozen close races that will determine control of the House in November.
Altman's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
