Democrats have one more member in the House as they try to regain the majority, but Analilia Mejia must defend the seat in the June primary and November general election.
TRENTON, NJ – Democrats picked up another seat in the House of Representatives after progressive Analilia Mejia quickly won her special election Thursday.
The Associated Press called the race just minutes after polls closed at 8 p.m., with Mejia well ahead of Republican challenger Joe Hathaway with just 25% of the in-person votes counted.
Hathaway started the day behind due to early and mail-in voting breaking more Democrats. Nearly 9% of the district’s electorate had voted early, according to state estimates earlier in the week, with 62% of early votes cast by Democrats compared to just 25% by Republicans and about 14% by unaffiliated voters.
Winning the place released by current Governor Mikie SherrillDemocrats have another member in the House of Representatives as they try to regain the majority.
However, Mejia’s victory will be a short-lived victory for her, as she will have to defend the seat again in the regular primary held in June and again in the general election this November.
Going into Thursday, Mejia had a significant cash advantage; she had more than $1 million in contributions by the end of March, while Hathaway’s campaign boasted little more than half of that.
She also had a comfortable lead in a handful of polls, including an internal poll last month that gave her a 17 points advantage over Hathaway and an 11-point lead among independent voters. Political betting site Kalshi had Mejia with one 77% chance to defeat Hathaway in a special election.
For more than three decades, the 11th congressional district — made up of parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties — was considered a “red” district. In 2018, Sherrill turned the district blue when he defeated challenger Jay Webber 57% to 42%. Her re-election in 2020 was much closer, although Sherrill’s margin of victory widened again after redistricting in 2022.
In February, Mejia won the primary against 10 other Democrats, including former Rep Tom Malinowskiwhich initially was predicted to win the primaries. Other candidates included former Gov. Tahesha Way and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill. Both Gill and Malinowski endorsed and helped campaign with Mejia.
During the primaries, Mejia had the support of Representative New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who called her a “warrior for working people who has been on the front lines” of immigration and health care battles — and her former boss, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
She also received endorsements from top New Jersey Democrats such as Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and state Sen. Loretta Weinberg Majority Leader.
The Republican primary was a nobody’s race: Hathaway was the only one on the ballot.
Hathaway, the former mayor of Randolph Township and a onetime aide to Chris Christie, had announced his candidacy for Sherrill’s seat in October 2025 even before Sherrill won the governor’s race.
On the campaign trail, Hathway had an uphill climb. With few media appearances and hoping to win a seat that had become more reliably blue in recent years, he also had not secured a nomination from President Trump.
Hathway had been relatively quiet on controversial topics, hoping to position herself as a bipartisan “getting things done” lawmaker. He has offered lukewarm praise for Trump and even opposed plans for a new immigration detention center in Roxbury, New Jersey.
However, Hathaway sought to castigate Mejia as anti-Semitic for her criticism of Israel and cast her as a radical in support of positions such as universal health care.
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