Progressive Analilia Mejía takes New Jersey US House special election, giving Democrats another win

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DENVILLE, N.J. (AP) — Democrat Analilia Mejía won a New Jersey special election for the U.S. House on Thursday, defeating Republican Joe Hathaway on a message of standing up to President Donald Trump and defending progressive policies.

Mejía, 48, a former head of the Working Families Alliance who had support from Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, will fill the seat previously held by Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill and serve until January.

Her victory is a win for progressives and means Democrats hold on to the 11th District seat in the House, where Republicans hold a thin majority. It also adds to a string of victories for Democrats heading into this year’s midterm elections.

The Associated Press called the race for Mejía minutes after the polls closed.

Mejía later spoke in Montclair to an enthusiastic crowd of supporters who called out in unison with her that she was an “unbought, unbossed, sassy new member of Congress.”

Republicans criticized her throughout the campaign as too far to the left. She pushed back against those arguments, calling for better health care and education and attacking billionaires for having a “stranglehold” on the economy.

“It is not radical to say that a worker who toils every day cannot make ends meet, that they deserve justice, that they deserve higher wages,” Mejía said Thursday night. “That is not radical, that is good conscience. That is a good economy.”

Her speech echoed Sanders, who congratulated her in a social media post and said she would be a “great progressive addition” to Congress.

Mejía emerged from a crowded primary in February and cast the race as a test of Trump’s leadership. She criticized his pardons of people convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes and faulted him for freezing funds authorized by Congress.

She campaigned on populist economic policies and pushing to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She has criticized the Israeli government and said she stands with Palestinian communities in their “pursuit of peace and dignity.”

Hathaway, 38, tried to use Mejía's progressive credentials to his advantage, as national Republicans cast her as a socialist. After her victory he congratulated Mejía and wished her well. He added that he still believes the district is looking for “balanced, pragmatic” leadership, not “far-left policies.”

The two could go head to head again in November’s election for a full two-year term.

The 11th District, which covers parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey’s wealthy suburbs, was long a Republican stronghold but has become increasingly Democratic since Trump’s first term.

Sherrill first won the seat in 2018’s midterm elections, when Democrats flipped dozens of seats to take control of Congress. In 2024 she won reelection by about 15 points, while Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, carried the district by nearly 9 points.

Mejía's margin of victory was greater. With more than 90% of votes counted late Thursday, she led Hathaway by about 20 percentage points. Additional mail-in ballots — which have favored Mejía by an even larger margin — will be counted in the coming days as they can arrive as late as Wednesday.

Saran Cunningham, an 86-year-old retired special educator, said she was initially reluctant to support Mejía, worried that her views were too far to the left. She backed another candidate in the primary. But recently, outside the Morristown early polling location, she said she would now vote for Mejía.

“I think we’ve been tilting a little bit more to the right lately, which worries me,” Cunningham said. “I think that we need people in Congress who will fight for things that will help people as opposed to hurting them.”

Rob Berkowitz, 62, cast his early vote for Hathaway at the Denville polling station. Describing himself as a conservative, Berkowitz gave Trump high marks on immigration, the economy and the war in Iran, comparing him to Winston Churchill. He criticized the Democratic Party for moving away from leaders in the style of Harry Truman, whom he praised.

“They want borders wide open. They don’t want to enforce existing immigration laws,” Berkowitz said.

The February Democratic primary pitted Mejía against former Rep. Tom Malinowski and others in a race where the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was a key player. The group’s affiliated super PAC tried to thwart Malinowski after he questioned unconditional aid to the Israeli government. That effort appeared to backfire as Mejía, who said she agreed that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, came out on top.

Over the years she has been a regular presence in the state Capitol, advocating for progressive causes, and was Sanders’ political director during his 2020 presidential run. During the Biden administration, she was deputy director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau.

In addition to winning Sanders’ endorsement, she was backed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Hathaway, a former Yale University football player, has worked in health care and finance as well as in politics as an aide for former GOP Gov. Chris Christie.