Westfield, NJ —
practicing physician Dr. Tina Shah is stepping up to run for Congress in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District to put insurance companies and career politicians like Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr. on notice that it is time to fix what is broken in our healthcare system and in Washington.
“I’m running for Congress because America is in critical condition and enough is enough,” said Dr. Shah, a New Jersey native. “As a physician I took an oath to first do no harm, but when I go to work in the Intensive Care Unit, I’m up against a system that is designed to make patients broke and sicker, prioritize insurance companies’ profits above all else, and burn out a workforce trying to save lives. Meanwhile, career politicians like Tom Kean Jr. are doing nothing to lower healthcare costs or expand access to care. Instead, he’s dodging his constituents while casting the deciding vote to gut Medicaid and attacking access to essential care, including abortion, in New Jersey.
Dr. Shah continued: “Kean Jr. also supports Donald Trump and RFK Jr. who, with no medical training, are actively gutting lifesaving medical research and putting vaccine deniers in charge of our vaccine system. If we keep going down this road, there’s only one outcome: people will get hurt. What we do next is critical. I’m running for Congress to fix what is fundamentally broken and stand up for my patients, my neighbors, my community, and New Jersey.”
Dr. Shah grew up in New Jersey and is a practicing physician triple board-certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and critical care medicine. She has spent her career fighting for her patients' lives in the ICU and working to find solutions to improve patient outcomes in both the private sector and at the highest levels of government.
Now, she is running for Congress because New Jerseyans are paying too high a price for the failures of systems meant to serve them. Dr. Shah is challenging Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr., who just cast the deciding vote in Congress for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history – all to fund more tax cuts for billionaires.
Race raters agree that Kean Jr. is highly vulnerable: The Center for Politics rates NJ-07 as one of the only “toss-up” congressional races in the country. Additionally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has included Tom Kean Jr. in their 2026 “Districts in Play” list.
About Dr. Tina Shah:
Dr. Tina Shah is an intensive care doctor who has spent her career fighting for her patients and to improve the quality of care in New Jersey and across the country. A triple board-certified physician, Tina has cared for patients at their most vulnerable and seen firsthand how rising costs, insurance denials, and political dysfunction put lives at risk. Instead of accepting the broken healthcare system, Tina got to work to fix it from both the public and private sectors. She served under three presidential administrations, developing innovative strategies to expand access to healthcare to veterans and leading the first federal plan to combat the burnout that drove doctors and nurses out of the field. In New Jersey, she successfully fought for legislation that stopped insurance companies from denying care. As Chief Medical Officer of an AI company, she also led efforts to cut red tape for doctors and nurses, freeing them to focus on patients and outcomes instead of paperwork. Today, Tina is running for Congress to restore sanity and science in Washington and deliver the stable, compassionate leadership New Jersey’s 7th District deserves.
To learn more about Tina and join the campaign, visit www.drtinashahforcongress.com.
