As the final votes are tallied and Democrats continue to notch midterm election victories this week, Republican incumbents were toppled in New Jersey and California by opponents who built campaigns focused on affordable and accessible health care.

Former Obama administration official Andy Kim was officially declared the winner in New Jersey’s 3rd district Wednesday, ousting Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ). MacArthur was one of the left’s biggest health care foes, and earned the label as “the face of the GOP’s health care repeal” by the health care advocacy group Protect Our Care, as Bloomberg noted.

Last year, MacArthur worked with Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows on an amendment to the GOP’s bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would have allowed insurance companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, which ultimately passed the House.

During the campaign, apparently feeling the heat, MacArthur claimed his bill did exactly the opposite, saying in a mailer in July that he would “protect health insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions who are trying to obtain affordable health care.”


“Congressman MacArthur is abusing our tax dollars to spread misinformation,” Kim said at the time, according to NJ.com. “He wrote the amendment that gutted pre-existing condition protections and he can’t run away from it. His name is on it — the MacArthur amendment.”

Several thousand miles west, Democrat Josh Harder claimed victory Tuesday in a race that he, too, worked to make about health care issues, ousting incumbent Rep. Jeff Denham (D-CA).