By Nolan D. McCaskill
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) – Voters in northern New Jersey chose Analilia Mejia, a progressive Democrat who worked on Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential election campaign, as their next representative in a special election on Thursday, according to U.S. media.
The race was called minutes after polls closed, with Mejia leading by nearly 40 percentage points in early returns.
Mejia’s election will narrow Republicans’ grip on the U.S. House of Representatives heading into the November midterm elections. She was favored over Republican Randolph Township Councilman Joe Hathaway to fill the seat vacated by former U.S. Representative Mikie Sherrill, a moderate Democrat, who was elected governor in November.
The special election came days after two members of Congress – Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California and Republican Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas – announced their resignations following separate sexual misconduct allegations and a new member, Republican Representative Clay Fuller of Georgia, was sworn in.
Mejia raised $1.1 million through March 27, according to recent campaign filings, more than double Hathaway’s $525,000. The filings show Mejia entered the final stretch of the campaign with three times as much money in the bank as Hathaway.
Mejia won a crowded primary that featured millions of dollars in outside spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC.
The spending targeted former U.S. Representative Tom Malinowski over his stance on Israel. But the ad campaign backfired, as Mejia – a far bigger critic of Israel – beat Malinowski by roughly 1,000 votes. Hathaway ran unopposed for the Republican nomination.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by nearly 9 percentage points in 2024, when Sherrill won reelection by nearly 15 percentage points. Sherrill carried the district by a similar margin in the 2025 gubernatorial election, en route to a 14-point win statewide.
MEJIA’S ELECTION WOULD SHRINK REPUBLICANS’ MAJORITY
When Mejia is sworn in, House Republicans will hold a 217-214 majority with one independent caucusing with Republicans and three vacancies to be filled later this year in Texas and California due to the pair of resignations this week and the death of former Republican Representative Doug LaMalfa.
United Democracy Project, a pro-Israel super PAC, has signaled it will spend to elect another Democrat over Mejia in the state’s June 2 primary. The winner of that race will be favored to win a full two-year term in November, but none of the top three candidates who ran against Mejia in the February 5 primary has filed to run against her in June.
DEMOCRATS HAVE OVERPERFORMED IN SPECIAL CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS
Democratic candidates have overperformed their party’s margins in the 2024 presidential election by an average of 18 points in six special congressional elections this cycle in Florida, Virginia, Arizona, Tennessee and Georgia. A seventh special election in Texas featured two Democrats in a runoff.
While the party hasn’t flipped any federal seats this Congress, the consistent overperformance suggests more enthusiasm for Democrats, who have rallied behind an affordability message, charging that President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are making life more expensive for Americans.
Trump’s approval on the economy was just 29% as of a March 20-23 Reuters/Ipsos poll, as Americans have responded negatively to the surge in energy prices.
Democrats would need to flip just a handful of seats in November to win control of the House of Representatives for the final two years of Trump’s presidency. The president’s party traditionally suffers losses in the midterms, but Trump has pushed Republican state legislators to redraw congressional districts to buck historical trends.
Democratic state legislators have moved to counter Republican gerrymandering by redrawing maps to benefit Democrats in their states.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill; Editing by David Gaffen, Nick Zieminski and Lincoln Feast.)
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