(LifeSiteNews) – Rebecca Bennett, a Democrat nominee for Congress in New Jersey, was caught on audio claiming she stopped going to church specifically because she could not stand sitting in the same pews as people who voted for President Donald Trump.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that it obtained audio from a February campaign event of Bennett, a Navy veteran and healthcare executive running against Republican incumbent Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. for the state’s 7th Congressional District. In the clip, Bennett answers a question about how she deals with invocations of her patriotism being considered a “right-coded way of presenting yourself.”
“I will say I use that word intentionally, and the reason that I do it is because, so, I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and after Trump got elected, I stopped going to church for the first time in my life because I was like, ‘I cannot sit in this room of people,’” she responded. “At the time, I was stationed somewhere that was pretty conservative. I was still in the military at the time. I was like, ‘I cannot sit in this church full of people who voted for Trump.’ And then, ultimately, I decided they do not get to decide what Christianity looks like, and to me, it’s the same thing about (how) they do not get to decide what patriotism is. You do not get to wrap yourself in the flag while you are literally murdering Americans in broad daylight.” (The audio ends before Bennett elaborates on which Americans were “murdered in broad daylight.”)
The Free Beacon noted that the race is considered a toss-up, but the insult toward residents who voted for Trump could impact Bennett’s hopes of presenting herself as mainstream enough to pick up the seat.
“Lying Rebecca Bennett admitted that she hates the majority of voters in the district she’s running to represent and backs a full-blown police-hating socialist. Bennett could not be further out of step with this district, and New Jerseyans won’t trust her with their vote as a result,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Maureen O’Toole responded.
While Democrats perceive this year’s midterm elections as a golden opportunity to retake Congress, doubts remain as to their ability to capitalize on it.
President Donald Trump continues to struggle with an overall 58.1 percent job disapproval rating and widespread discontent with his handling of issues such as abortion pills, federal spending, tariffs, the Iran war, and mass deportations. As a result, RaceToTheWH currently projects Republicans to just barely hold the Senate and Democrats to take the House of Representatives.
However, the Democrat Party appears largely unwilling to eschew the left-wing radicalism that returned Trump to office. After the 2024 presidential election, pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third-biggest reason for why overall voters chose not to vote for the former vice president and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted instead for Trump.
Last month, the Democrat National Committee released an election autopsy report admitting that the Trump campaign’s attack ads about Harris’s transgender focus were particularly potent, that Democrats’ focus on identity-politics backfired and that “focus on social issues over economic issues alienated socially conservative voters who prioritized kitchen-table concerns.
