New Jersey’s 11th District Democratic primary is still too close to call after progressive candidate Analilia Mejia pulled ahead of former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski late Thursday evening.
Mejia is currently leading the pack of 11 candidates vying for the special election seat, with about 17,647 votes, or 28.8%, as of Friday morning. Former 7th District congressman Malinowski is trailing Mejia by just 486 votes, with 17,161 votes, or 28.0%.
Decision Desk HQ initially called the race in favor of Malinowski on Thursday evening just before 9:00 p.m. The Democratic National Committee also issued a congratulatory statement to Malinowski, saying he “clinched victory.” However, the election forecaster rescinded its projection around 10:30 p.m., citing a surge in same-day votes for Mejia in Morris County, where Malinowski was expected to perform the best.
“As the night progressed, margins in Morris County quickly tilted toward Mejia; Mejia began winning drops by 20%-30%, representing a swing of 65 points compared to the absentee vote. This trend reversal prompted us to re-examine our race projection and ultimately retract it,” Decision Desk HQ wrote on X.
As Election Day votes for Mejia began coming in after the initial Malinowski call, the betting market began to reverse in favor of the progressive candidate. Mejia trolled the initial call on X with a “Dewey defeats Truman” image and declared her own victory overnight.
Mejia, who previously served as the national political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign and served in the Labor Department under former President Joe Biden, scored high-profile endorsements, including from Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). She ran a campaign focused on left-wing ideas, such as making the first $40,000 in wages free of federal taxes and creating a “Medicare for All” system.
Malinowski ran a more moderate Democratic campaign focused on lowering health insurance and housing costs, throwing out President Donald Trump’s tariffs, fighting corruption, and enacting democracy-safeguarding reforms.
Malinowski was also hammered by negative AIPAC ads, which could deal a detrimental blow to his campaign. AIPAC’s super PAC spent over $2.3 million on ads attacking Malinowski in the primary cycle, even though the group previously supported the former congressman, according to Punchbowl News.
AIPAC’s reversal came after Malinowski criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the war in Gaza and after he did not rule out conditioning aid to Israel, though he still supports financially backing Israel’s security, according to the New York Times.
AIPAC instead backed former Democratic Lt. Gov. Taesha Way’s campaign, but may have given room for Mejia, who has been much more critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinians, to pull ahead.
The Democratic candidate elected will face Republican Joe Hathaway, the mayor of Randolph Township, in the general election to fill Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s (D-NJ) former congressional seat.
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Way currently has 10,716 votes, or 17.4%, to her name and is leading in Passaic County.
Brendan Gill, former Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s pick, has 14.2% of the vote.