An Unabashed Progressive Dominates In New Jersey, Another Midterm Warning Sign For Republicans

Democrats continued their domination of special elections Thursday, when New Jersey voters overwhelmingly elected progressive organizer Analilia Mejia to Congress.

Mejia, a former top Bernie Sanders presidential campaign staffer who once helmed the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, led Republican Joe Hathaway by almost 20 points Friday with 94 percent of the vote counted, despite being called a “radical socialist” by Republicans.

Her convincing victory shows that the "radical" label had limited political consequence in such a polarized and charged environment, with anger at President Donald Trump fueling Democratic turnout. That could signal bigger electoral problems for Republicans in the midterms.

“I think it’s a clear sign that the MAGA movement is fading, diminishing and that democracy is at the forefront of voters’ agendas,” New Jersey Democratic State Committee Chair LeRoy Jones said in a phone interview.

Now the question turns to what this means for Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who’s in the neighboring 7th District — demographically similar, but less Democratic. Kean won reelection in 2024 by 5 points and is expected to face a tough reelection in November, with four Democrats running in the June primary to take him on.

“It makes that Democratic primary all the more interesting,” said Republican consultant Carlos Cruz, who added he thinks Democrats will be more of a threat if they nominate a moderate instead of a progressive in the district’s crowded Democratic field.

Mejia significantly overperformed Democratic 2024 margins in a wealthy, suburban and already Democratic district in NJ-11. She appears to have won the district by about 11 points more than Kamala Harris did, and about 5 points more than her predecessor, Gov. Mikie Sherrill.

But that wasn’t quite as big a swing as witnessed in some other recent special elections around the country.

That may be because Mejia is significantly to the left of Sherrill, who had a record of strong performance in the district and vacated the seat in November following her landslide gubernatorial win. Mejia did not attempt to moderate her message, running on progressive social and economic planks. Her criticism of Israel appears to have alienated a significant number of Jewish voters in the district, but it wasn't enough to make the race close.

She rejected the "radical" label and turned it on Republicans and ultra-wealthy titans of industry.

“I would say that the true radicals are Jeff Bezos, [Speaker] Mike Johnson, Palantir, Elon Musk, Donald Trump and even Joe Hathaway — radicals who are willing to upend our democracy, subvert our Constitution and act with impunity, and we must stop them,” Mejia said in her victory speech. “These radicals who clap for a president so perverse that he insults the God that he purports to uphold. These radicals will watch Rome burn with all of us within, and they are simply cowards — cowards unwilling to stand up to this madness.”

Hathaway — a councilmember and former mayor in the small Morris County town of Randolph — ran as a moderate who was willing to criticize some of Trump’s decisions that threatened to hurt the district's residents, like his attempts to hold up funds to build a new rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan.

Hathaway blamed the election’s unusual timing, set by former Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, in part for the lopsided margin. “This was a unique and, frankly, unusual election. The structure and timing, set by a partisan Democratic governor, produced exactly the kind of low-turnout environment that benefits one party. We saw heavy vote-by-mail participation, limited Election Day turnout, and far too many Republican and unaffiliated voices left out of the process,” he said in a statement.

Still, Hathaway cut significantly into the district’s most Jewish towns of Livingston and Millburn.

Mejia has said she believes Israel committed genocide in Gaza and did not raise her hand when asked at a candidate forum if she believed Jews “have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, what is commonly referred to as Zionism.” She also rankled some Jews by being photographed wearing a kaffiyeh, a scarf that’s become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

“There’s no doubt there were some Jews who were just going to vote for the Democrat. But this was a marked shift,” said Josh Katz, president of the Montclair Jewish Community Relations Council and a Democrat who voted for Hathaway. “I know Jewish people who were at one point Bernie supporters who voted for Hathaway. That’s a huge change,” he said.

Ironically, it was the pro-Israel group AIPAC that paved the way for Mejia by spending millions of dollars to damage the front-runner in the Democratic primary, former Rep. Tom Malinowski. Now voters in a relatively moderate district have elected a progressive who would be at home in “The Squad.” Indeed, Mejia had been endorsed by a squad member, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“Mejia is New Jersey’s version of AOC, but NJ-11 is not New Jersey’s version of AOC’s district,” said Cruz, who produced a Hathaway ad. “It’s not like the Queens or the Bronx.”

Jones, the Democratic state chair, projected confidence for his party in the upcoming contest in the neighboring 7th District, where Kean is trying to keep his seat. “Whoever the Democratic nominee is in the 7th Congressional District, I believe Tom Kean can prepare to figure out what he’s going to do when he’s not a congressman,” he said.

Mejia, who faces some minor primary challengers in June, will face Hathaway again in the regular November election.