By Kristen Neymarc and Kevin Coughlin
It only took seven minutes for the Associated Press to call Thursday’s 11th District special election for Democrat Analilia Mejia in a landslide.
Later, with an estimated 95 percent of the votes tallied, the AP reported 59.5 percent for Mejia to Republican Joe Hathaway’s 40 percent. Independent Alan Bond, a financier who served jail time for defrauding investors, had 0.5 percent.
Mejia succeeds Gov. Mikie Sherrill in Congress, representing a major chunk of Morris County — including Greater Morristown— and portions of Essex and Passaic counties. The unexpired term runs until Jan. 3, 2027.
“In November, when I jumped into this race, the odds were stacked against us. But you know, we did the impossible and we won!” Mejia told jubilant supporters, in English and Spanish, inside the steamy Montclair Art Museum.
Video from Mejia campaign livestream:
She is the first Latina elected to represent the district.
“The daughter of a Dominican factory worker and a Colombian seamstress, who grew up wondering what could I possibly be in this world as a working class kid who watched her parents struggle? …They taught me the greatest thing I could in fact do with my life was to employ it in service of others.”
What Mejia’s victory portends for the high-stakes Congressional midterms this fall remains to be seen. But it’s part of a trend that is giving Democrats cause for optimism. In addition to last fall’s closely watched gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia, they have flipped 30 state legislative seats — including Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district in Florida— during the president’s second term, notes The DownBallot.
“Republicans have yet to figure out how to mobilize Trump voters when Trump isn’t on the ballot,” Dan Cassino, executive director of the FDU Poll at Fairleigh Dickinson University, told Morristown Green.
Mejia quickly reminded the crowd that there’s not much time for celebrating, however.
Mejia faces challenges in June’s Democratic primary — former Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello; Joseph Lewis and Justin Strickland, a combat veteran and Chatham Borough councilman, have announced bids — for the right to run yet again, in November’s general election.
‘WE ARE HUMANS, FIRST’
The labor organizer and progressive activist, who was national political director for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, was endorsed by Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren, positioning herself as a grassroots candidate focused on affordability and workers’ rights.
Her platform included Medicare for All, a $25 minimum wage with the first $40,000 tax-free, and a wealth tax. She also called for abolishing ICE, and holding the Trump administration accountable.
Mejia edged out 10 Democrats in a February special primary, then bested Hathaway in a sprint where she was attacked as a radical socialist and an anti-Semite for opposing Israel’s occupation of Gaza.
She portrayed Hathaway — a Randolph councilman who positioned himself as a “common-sense” moderate — as a MAGA rubber-stamp for President Trump.
Hathaway wished Mejia well in a concession statement priming the pump for a November rematch, citing the winner’s “far-left policies,” linking her to the “Squad” (Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive women in Congress), and characterizing the race as “unique and, frankly, unusual…”
“The structure and timing, set by a partisan Democratic governor, produced exactly the kind of low-turnout environment that benefits one party,” said the Yale grad and former member of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration.
“We saw heavy vote-by-mail participation, limited Election Day turnout, and far too many Republican and unaffiliated voices left out of the process. The result is that Analilia Mejia has now won two elections decided by a small share of the overall electorate, 3.2% of the total electorate in the primary, and just north of 10% of the total electorate tonight.”
From the victor’s podium on Thursday, Mejia countered that the “real radicals” are those “who fight for a president so perverse that he insults the God that he purports to uphold. And who will … watch Rome burn with all of us. They are simply cowards, cowards unwilling to stand up. But we stand up, we resist. We cannot allow it to continue.”
Billionaires, the Glen Ridge resident asserted, are exerting a “stranglehold” on the economy, while working class people struggle to afford healthcare, housing and education.
“We are humans, first. Factions, parties, ideas, ideologies — they are ephemeral. Humanity, our commitment to each other, must be permanent,” Mejia said.
SPECIAL AND SPEEDY
The Hathaway camp had hoped for a strong showing in his home county, once a Red bastion. But unofficial results showed Mejia taking Morris County by about 54 percent to 46 percent. Only 18 percent of registered voters in the district’s 27 Morris municipalities cast ballots, according to Morris County Clerk Ann Grossi.
Essex County, with 15 towns in the district, was an even bigger win for Mejia: 71 percent to 29 percent. Hathaway’s only bragging rights were in Passaic County — barely. AP estimates gave him a 50 to 49 percent edge in that four-municipality sliver of voters.
District-wide, the odds were daunting for the GOP.
As of April 1, CD-11 had about 230,000 registered Democrats, with 204,000 unaffiliated voters and 165,000 Republicans. Sherrill, a Democrat, won her 2024 congressional race with about 57 percent of the vote, and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried the district with 53 percent at the top of the ticket.
Friction extended into the final hours of this race. Hathaway issued a press release on election eve alleging voter intimidation by his opponent. Dale Kramer of the Morris County Board of Elections said she would look into the claim.
The election ran at breakneck speed after Sherrill relinquished her Capitol Hill seat for the governorship. A special primary was launched over the holidays and squeezed into a matter of weeks.
Mejia won the hasty primary with about 29% of the vote, emerging from a fractured field in a contest shaped in its final stretch by heavy outside spending tied to pro-Israel groups, mostly aimed at former Rep. Tom Malinowski.
Whether the late spending ultimately cleared Mejia’s path or simply amplified an already volatile race remains a point of debate. Hathaway was unopposed as the Republican nominee.
Married and the mother of two boys, Mejia honed her activist skills at Rutgers in New Brunswick, where she was involved in campus Latino organizations. She earned a degree in comparative literature in 2000, followed by two master’s degrees—in Public Policy from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in 2002, and in labor education from the School of Management and Labor Relations a year later.
She serves as co–executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, and previously led the New Jersey Working Families Alliance.
MORE COVERAGE OF THE DISTRICT 11 SPECIAL RACE
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@John I am aware of the mechanics of this election. I think New Jersey would have preferred a moderate Democrat like Jon Malinowski (as I did) but, unfortunately, AIPAC took him out of the race and is now stuck with a very progressive Democrat.
Nonetheless, Democrats and Republicans alike were subject to a “compressed timeline and off-cycle schedule.” I still don’t see how Republicans were left out of the process.
@Moira – It was a single office special election held in April. With a compressed timeline of primaries in February and an election in April, Mejia raised 2x money as Hathaway and outspent him 3-1. She won the election by more than 20%, which is more than Sherrill won in her last CD-11 election. Do you really think that the people of CD-11 wanted to elect a Progressive Democrat more than they wanted a moderate Democrat like Mike Sherill? “Left out of the process” means that the compressed timeline and off-cycle schedule were features of the election that was mandated by Gov Phil Murphy in Nov 2025. It was meant to be a low turnout election to ensure that democrats can keep that seat ahead of the midterms this Fall.
Hathaway has the same old excuses, especially about Mail-in ballots. I voted early, as did many others, which may reflect lower turnout on Election Day. But how, exactly, were Republicans “left out of the process?”