LONG HILL TOWNSHIP - Women are important.

We're talking about politics. Women tend to vote more than men. In the 2024 presidential election, 91.3 million women voted, as compared to 82.6 million men. That according to the League of Women Voters. Women also lean Democratic, according to various studies and polling.

So, it was no surprise that Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, dropped into CD-7 Saturday afternoon to bolster the campaign of Rebecca Bennett.

"The path to freedom runs through this district," Johnson told about 50 people at the Vintage Tavern in the Gillette section of town.

Everyone grasped the point.

The only way women's reproductive rights could be codified into federal law would be for Democrats to win control of Congress. They would also need a Democratic president, but first things first.

Bennett ridiculed Tom Kean Jr for saying he's "pro-choice" during an earlier campaign while having what she said was a secret anti-abortion website.

But it's not only the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade that has Bennett, and she said other women, upset.

"We're mad because of this," she said as she reeled off a number of news events adversely impacting women.

They included the failure to release the full Epstein files, the failure of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to promote women (Bennett is a former Navy helicopter pilot) and the ongoing rape investigation at Cornell University.

"It makes me physically ill," she said of the alleged gang rape at Cornell. The investigation was recently reactivated.

Johnson holds a national office, but she is no stranger to the region. She was born and raised in Morristown, which is just outside CD-7.

But it wasn't mere familiarity that brought her to Morris County on a pleasant fall afternoon.

"It's a critical seat. It's a national seat," she said of the race.

Few would argue with that.

As for Kean, the congressman does not publicly announce campaign events. His social media page revealed that he spent part of Saturday at a car show in New Providence.

Earlier this week, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, journeyed to the district for the second time this campaign season to help Kean. The Speaker joined the congressman at a Union County Republican party event. Earlier, he was at a golf club fundraiser in Warren County.

The Nov. 3 election is now precisely a month away and Bennett plans a series of town halls - she calls it a Deckplate Leadership Tour - in each of the six counties in the district. For those keeping score, they are Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren.

"In the Navy, I learned Deckplate Leadership - which meant that you showed up and listened to the people you served. That’s exactly how I’ll lead in Congress," she says on social media.

A month out from the election means the "final push" is underway.

You can expect more campaign money to be spent on more nasty ads - on both sides.

One way to get your supporters to work hard is to have them think of what could be.

"Think about how you want to feel when you wake up November 4," Bennett told the crowd.