Westfield, NJ — Indian American physician Dr. Tina Shah has announced her candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives from New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, vowing to challenge entrenched political interests and confront the failures of the healthcare system. 

Dr. Shah’s campaign aims to hold insurance companies and career politicians, specifically Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr., accountable for rising healthcare costs and lack of meaningful reform.

In an official campaign statement, on July 1, 2025, Dr. Shah emphasized her mission to “restore sanity and science in Washington” and provide the “stable, compassionate leadership” that she believes residents of the district deserve.

“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.”

Dr. Shah criticized Rep. Tom Kean Jr. for failing to take meaningful action on healthcare affordability or access. She accused him of avoiding constituents and casting votes that undermine Medicaid and restrict essential services, including reproductive healthcare.

“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,” Dr. Shah continued. “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.”

A practicing intensive care physician, Dr. Shah is triple board-certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and critical care medicine. Her career spans clinical practice, healthcare innovation, and public service, with a consistent focus on improving outcomes for patients.

She has held leadership roles across the private sector and three presidential administrations, where she advanced strategies to expand access to care for veterans and spearheaded the first federal plan to address clinician burnout. In New Jersey, she helped pass legislation to curb insurance denials. As Chief Medical Officer of a healthcare AI firm, Shah led initiatives to streamline bureaucracy so healthcare providers could focus more on patient care and less on paperwork.

According to her campaign, Dr. Shah’s decision to run was driven by what she sees as the mounting cost of government inaction for everyday New Jerseyans. The statement highlighted Kean Jr.’s recent vote in favor of historic Medicaid cuts, framed as benefiting the wealthy at the expense of working families.

“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,” the statement noted.

Dr. Shah brings both frontline experience and policy expertise to her candidacy, grounded in a career devoted to patient advocacy and systemic reform. Her campaign positions her as a physician-leader determined to bring both compassion and competence to Washington at a time of growing public frustration with healthcare and governance.

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