Rep. Tom Malinowski is part of a new cohort of Members of Congress who entered their 2018 races with impressively strong national security backgrounds and emerged as leaders on these issues in Congress. This year, the Republican Party has enlisted a strong candidate to oppose him.
Malinowski, born in Communist Poland at the height of the Cold War, fled to the United States with his mother at age 6. He earned a Rhodes Scholarship, and went on to serve on President Clinton’s National Security Council, where he worked to end some of the 20th Century’s bloodiest humanitarian crises. As the chief advocate for Human Rights Watch, he partnered with John McCain to lead a bipartisan effort to end the Bush Administration’s use of torture.
He later served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under President Obama, where he helped lead the fight to defend the rights of women and LGBTQ people, to protect workers in trade agreements, and to crack down on corruption around the world.
In 2018, he upset an incumbent Republican Congressman by 52-47% with the endorsement of Council for a Livable World. This year, the GOP recruited state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr., son of a moderate former governor, who took 44 percent against Sen. Bob Menendez in 2006 and who is well-funded. The contest will be close.
He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, where he has established a solid voting record on our issues.
