Dem Candidate in Swing House District Spent Years Calling for Reparations. Then She Ran for Congress.

Sue Altman was vocal supporter of reparations, which polls show is unpopular

Sue Altman (D., N.J.) is a longtime supporter of reparations, but you wouldn’t know it from the way she’s campaigned for Congress.

Altman, the presumptive Democratic nominee for New Jersey’s hotly contested Seventh Congressional District, enthusiastically supported reparations during her time as state director of the progressive New Jersey Working Families Party. But the Washington Free Beacon couldn’t find any instances of Altman discussing reparations since she launched her congressional campaign. The issue doesn’t appear anywhere on her campaign website, either.

While Altman has been silent on the issue since running for office, polls have shown reparations to be a losing political issue. Support for reparations among Americans is low, according to a 2023 Washington Post-Ipsos poll; only 26 percent of all Americans think the federal government should pay money to black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved.

Altman in May 2023 launched her campaign for the highly anticipated race for New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District against Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr. Before launching her run, Altman served as state director of the New Jersey Working Families Party where she advocated for reparations and a reparations committee.

“ALL white people in NJ and across the country have benefitted from slavery’s long long legacy. NJ must pass the Reparations Task Force Bill,” the party wrote in March 2021.

Altman herself also backed the policy at the time, calling for a statewide reparations task force.

“The legalization referendum is an admission that the war on drugs was a racist catastrophe. Now we have to UNDO it. Not simply ‘move forward’ like, ‘we’re cool.’ No! Equitable revenue distribution is a form of reparations—EXTREMELY valid,” Altman wrote in November 2020.

“Create a #reparations commission in NJ Why? Because NJ had slavery. By 1625 enslaved African people were here,” Altman wrote less than a year later.

Altman’s emphasis on the importance of reparations has disappeared since running for office. On her campaign website, under the “Issues” tab, Altman lists “anti-corruption,” “women’s rights and abortion,” “affordability,” “New Jersey’s natural environment,” “workers’ rights and unions,” “lower taxes,” “public safety,” “democracy,” “Medicare and social security,” “public education,” and “youth mental health”—but not reparations.

This comes as Altman is challenging Kean Jr. in his tight reelection campaign. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in March named Altman to their “Red to Blue Program” that names her race as one of the most competitive in the country.

Altman did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment about her campaign’s stance on reparations.

Progressive members of Congress have floated reparations as a part of their racial justice policy agenda. Cori Bush (D., Mo.) in May 2023, for example, introduced a resolution which aimed “to eliminate the racial wealth gap that currently exists between black and white Americans,” claiming “the United States has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people in the United States.” The resolution estimated approximately $97 trillion worth of work by slaves between 1619 and 1865, with Bush citing a minimum of $14 trillion to address the current ramifications of slavery.