A longtime Democratic organizer appears poised to ride President Donald Trump’s unpopularity and backlash to his Middle East policies to an easy victory in a special House election in New Jersey.
Even as Analilia Mejia fights charges of antisemitism and runs well to the left of the last representative to hold the seat, every major indicator suggests voters in what was once a reliably red district are so fed up with the president that they are willing to send a candidate to Washington who could easily join the Squad.
The special election to fill Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House seat will be viewed as a test of how much anti-Trump sentiment voters feel ahead of the November midterms. Mejia’s Republican opponent, Joe Hathaway, has put distance between himself and the president, but is up against larger forces that Democrats have capitalized on in a run of special elections around the country.
“Trump is just making it extremely difficult for Republicans to do well anywhere, whether it’s foreign policy or domestic policy,” said Patrick Murray, who runs the polling firm Stimsight Research. “They all come together. People don’t like the war, but they also don’t like paying $4 a gallon for gas.”
The 11th Congressional District, one of the wealthiest in the country, is a microcosm of the trend of well-educated suburbanites revolting against Trump.
The early voting already tells a tale. Democrats have outpaced Republicans and early in-person voting by well over a two-to-one ratio.
In the 2024 election, a good year for Republicans in New Jersey, Sherrill won the district by about 15 points, while Kamala Harris carried it by about 9.
And all indications are that 2026 is a blue wave year, and even more so in special elections. In Wisconsin last week, the liberal candidate won a 20-point landslide in what were typically hyper-competitive Supreme Court elections. In Georgia, the Democratic candidate still lost the special election in a deep-red congressional district to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene, but they cut into Republican margins by double digits.
Hathaway, a councilmember in the Morris County town of Randolph, projected confidence ahead of Election Day.
"Throughout our campaign, I’ve focused on what matters most: putting the residents of NJ-11 first over party, and over ideology. My record of delivering practical solutions, working with anyone to get results, and restoring a sense of accountability in Washington will resonate with voters," Hathaway said in a statement. "My opponent can not say the same as she runs to appease the most radical fringes of her party and put radical socialist and antisemitic ideology first."
Mejia, who was national political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and before that led the New Jersey Working Families Party, is further to the left than Sherrill, but she has not toned down her progressivism. Her campaign’s television ad — the sole one running in the district — says she has the “integrity to take on a corrupt system where billionaires and greedy corporations get all the benefits and we get the bill” as it shows images of her rallying with Sanders.
Fundraising in the race has not been particularly heavy, but nevertheless lopsided in favor of Mejia, who as of late March had raised just over $1 million to Hathaway’s $523,000, and she had substantially more left in the bank.
“Trump and Republicans are spending $1 billion a day on an illegal war, rigging the rules to enrich their billionaire friends, and cutting healthcare and critical programs that working families rely on,” Mejia said in a statement. “We are fed up with the chaos coming out of Washington — from rising prices to attacks on our democracy. This is our chance to reject MAGA extremism, fight for an economy that works for everyone, and elect someone who is truly unbought and unbossed.”
Hathaway has homed in on one potential Mejia liability, attacking her statements on Israel to appeal to the district’s substantial Jewish population.
Mejia during the crowded Democratic primary was the only Democrat to agree with the statement that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, and she faced criticism for not raising her hand when asked if she agreed with the statement that Jews “have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, what is commonly referred to as Zionism.”
Concerned by Mejia’s stances, some Jews in her district recently organized an email campaign to discourage Sherrill and Sen. Cory Booker from campaigning with her. Sherrill nevertheless spoke at an Easter Sunday event with Mejia, while a planned Booker appearance was canceled, though both the Mejia and Booker campaigns said it was due to the senator’s tight schedule rather than the email campaign.
“There are many Democratic Jews who can’t bring themselves to vote for a Republican and they won’t. That doesn’t mean they aren’t horribly alarmed by her,” said Josh Katz, president of the Montclair Jewish Community Relations Council, and a Democrat who said he’s only voted for one Republican before but plans to vote for Hathaway.
But Mejia got an accidental assist in the primary by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, which spent millions of dollars to hurt the primary’s frontrunner, Tom Malinowski, despite him having a largely pro-Israel record. Those attack ads unintentionally boosted Mejia’s underdog Democratic primary campaign. Following that, New Jersey’s Democratic establishment— which Mejia had a tense relationship with in her years as a progressive leader — rallied around her. And she was endorsed last week by JPAC, the liberal pro-Israel organization.
Mejia and Hathaway likely face a rematch in the regular general election in November. Mejia has nominal primary opposition in the regular June primary, while Hathaway is unopposed.
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