New Jersey Democratic primary contest for House seat on knife-edge as votes trickle in | New Jersey
The outcome of the special Democratic primary to fill the U.S. House seat representing northern New Jersey was on a knife edge Friday after a progressive challenger got a surprising edge over a former Democratic congressman who initially appeared to have won the nomination.
Thursday’s election in New Jersey’s 11th congressional district comes after Democrat Mikie Sherrill resigned after being elected governor last year. Eleven Democrats ran to replace him, and on Thursday evening, Tom Malinowski, who represented a neighboring district in the House from 2019 to 2022, took an early lead.
Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin was quick to congratulate Malinowski, but as vote counting continued, progressive activist and Bernie Sanders’ former political director Analilia Mejia outnumbered the former congressman.
The Associated Press has not yet called the race, but Mejia was leading Malinowski by 488 votes with more than 61,000 votes counted Friday morning.
Mejia refrained from calling himself the winner, instead saying at a press conference: “I think we are victorious, but first I want to make sure that every voter’s voice is heard.”
A victory for Mejia in a state where party leadership has traditionally favored establishment figures could give a boost to Democrats’ progressive wing ahead of November midterm elections in which the party hopes to regain control of the House and Senate.
Reacting to Mejia’s momentum, Texas congressman Greg Casar, who leads the Congressional Progressive caucus, said: “Over and over again, voters are sending a message to Democrats: we need warriors to get on the mats for working people.”
Mejia, the former leader of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, entered the contest as a progressive challenger and has benefited from high-profile endorsements from Sanders and other left-wing lawmakers such as Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
his campaign highlighted grassroots organizing, economic justice, and a rejection of what he frames as establishment politics.
When Mejia campaigned with Sanders at William Paterson University in New Jersey in January, in question: “In a time of increasing authoritarianism, economic insecurity, state-sanctioned violence, just any old blue won’t do.”
“If you send weak sauce to Congress, we will take back the weak sauce,” he added.
Caught Malinowski a confirmation from Andy Kim, one of the state’s two Democratic senators, but faced more than $2.3 million in negative advertising paid by the United Democracy Project, a Super Pac affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), according to Federal Election Commission records.
Super Pac spokesman Patrick Dorton said: he told the New York Times He said the group opposed Malinowski because he had recently spoken out in favor of conditioning aid to Israel. “This is not a pro-Israel attitude,” he said.
Inside Interview with HillMalinowski, a former diplomat and human rights advocate who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, defended his stance by saying: “What Aipac is demanding is simply blind, blank-check support for the current government. [Israeli] Prime minister.”
“I don’t think that’s what most pro-Israel Jewish Americans want. [what] “Most Israelis want this,” he said.
The winner of the Democratic primary will run to face Randolph County mayor Joe Hathaway, the only Republican running in the state’s April 16 special general election.
