Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ.) Official congressional photo
Rep. Tom Kean (R-N.J.) is the Republican lawmaker who was missing for four months while he was institutionalized for mental health concerns. As he fights for his political career, his popularity appears to have faltered to the point that he's relying on his own staff and his father to promote him.
Each member of Congress is allocated funds to send messages to their constituents with a few restrictions on timing and what information it can contain. It's referred to as "franking privileges," and it was typically for pieces of mail. In the digital era, ads on social media can also be purchased. The House Committee on Ethics has the ad submissions on its website, including recent Facebook ads submitted by Kean's office.
One ad that promotes his "thousands in tax relief" features him on a public street talking to three people, but those people are his congressional staffers.
On the left is Renee Trabert. She currently serves as Kean’s special projects coordinator and was formerly the state Senate chief of staff, according to her LinkedIn profile. Facebook photos confirm she's the woman on the left.
The woman to the right of Kean is Kristen Doran, Kean’s director of operations, according to her LinkedIn profile. Her photo there matches the woman's face in the ad as well.
The man on the far right is only partially visible, but based on photos from his Instagram account, he appears to be J.D. Bryden, Kean’s district deputy director. A photo of him from Sept. 16, 2025, shows him wearing the same sweater that appears in the ad. The sweater appears again on May 9 and Nov. 1, 2025. A photo of him from the back can also be used for comparison.
Kean claims he "restored the SALT deduction for middle class families," in the ad. SALT stands for "state and local tax." Kean specifically proposed the "SALT Deductibility Act," which aimed to completely repeal the SALT cap, was proposed by Kean in 2026. It never passed. The only edits made to the SALT came from the GOP's budget bill in 2025, known as the "One, Big, Beautiful Bill." The cap was changed from $10,000 to $40,000. For the next few years, it will increase by 1 percent, before it stops being increased in 2029, the Tax Policy Center explained.
While Kean was away, his father came to his defense, telling NJ.com, “He hasn’t been able to do his full job to any degree for some months."
"He has seen more than one doctor, and he’s under a doctor’s care,” Kean Sr. said in a phone interview. “All the doctors say he’s gonna be fine. But it’s gonna take some time. They want to be in charge. They want to say when he does this and when he does that."
Speaking to CNN, Kean's father said it “took a real illness to knock him out,” but it “won’t linger."
“It’s not some kind of disease that’s going to incapacitate him in the future,” the former governor told the network about his son. “The consensus is that he will be 100 percent OK."
It was after he returned that he revealed the illness was crippling depression. He spoke out about mental health from the House floor when he returned, saying, "This is not a partisan issue. It touches every community, every family and every corner of this country. If sharing my story encourages even one person to seek help, if it gives one family the courage to have a difficult conversation or reminds one person that recovery is possible, then this moment will have been worthwhile."
The same bill that Kean touts for reducing state and local taxes, also significantly cut Medicaid spending across the board by $1 trillion over ten years. Medicaid is the largest payer for behavioral health services in the United States, said the Milbank Memorial Fund.
In a recent ad for his son, Kean Sr. said he was "proud" of him.
"He cares about people. That’s why he worked to protect Medicare and Medicaid for every New Jersey senior, child, disabled person," the ad claims.
Some political analysts are calling the race a toss-up "or giving a slight edge to moderate Democrat Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot with a similar resume to that of Gov. Mikie Sherrill," NJ Spotlight reported Monday.
Last month, Politico said that Kean's efforts relying on his political name "appears to be backfiring."
Just before his return, Kean's polling showed his "favorability is upside down—50 percent of likely voters view him unfavorably, compared to just 32 percent favorably," said InsiderNJ.com, citing numbers from Z to A Research on behalf of 314 Action Fund.