A US House special election in New Jersey becomes a Democratic testing ground

By Arit John, CNN

(CNN) — A crowded primary in the New Jersey suburbs Thursday has become an early testing ground for the debates that will shape the Democratic push to retake the US House in this year’s midterms.

The race to replace now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill has drawn a range of candidates – local elected officials, community advocates, a former paratrooper, a former lieutenant governor and a former congressman.

Democrats continue to grapple with how best to motivate their base and win back voters who’ve drifted away. National Democratic officials have drilled down on cost-of-living issues, while progressives and grassroots activists have criticized party leaders, arguing their opposition to President Donald Trump has been anemic.

In the reliably blue 11th District, candidates have taken the latter approach. They’ve railed against immigration enforcement, condemned the deaths of two Minneapolis protesters shot by federal agents and bemoaned the erosion of democratic norms.

Other familiar themes are at play in Thursday’s Democratic primary, including the power of the Democratic establishment and the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other well-funded outside groups.

Four candidates have emerged as perceived front-runners: Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, former New Jersey Rep. Tom Malinowski, former New Jersey Working Families Alliance leader Analilia Mejia, and former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way.

“For each of those four people, I could give you a list of reasons why they will win and a list of reasons why they won’t,” said Laura Matos, a New Jersey-based Democratic strategist. “It really comes down to who turns out to vote, and which candidate brings their voters out.”

The rest of the field includes former paratrooper Zach Beecher; community advocate, lawyer and comedian J-L Cauvin; Passaic County Commissioner John Bartlett; Cammie Croft, who worked in the Obama administration; Jeff Grayzel, a two-term mayor of Morris Township; Chatham Borough Council Member Justin Strickland; and community advocate Anna Lee Williams.

Once a Republican stronghold, Democrats have held the 11th District – which includes parts of northern New Jersey’s Essex, Morris and Passaic counties – since Sherrill flipped the seat in 2018. The district shifted further left in 2022 after redistricting.

Whoever wins Thursday’s primary will be the odds-on favorite to win the April 16 general election against the lone Republican candidate, former mayor of Randolph Township Joe Hathaway. They’ll also have an edge in the June primary for a full term beginning in January.

A look at a wide-open race

Leading into Thursday’s vote, the candidates have called on their party to take on a more confrontational stance in Washington, particularly towards US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Several candidates argued the agency should be defunded.

“We see what’s going on out in Minnesota,” said Way, the former lieutenant governor and secretary of state. “Totally unacceptable, unconstitutional and un-American, with the ICE raids, but also trying to extort personal data off of the voter rolls.”

Way noted her own fights against Republicans who sued to access New Jersey’s voter data as an example of her record pushing back on the administration.

Gill has pointed to his experience as both an elected official and former congressional staffer, as well as his work with his local Democratic Party, which organized a “No Kings” protest.

“I think I have, at certain times, felt that we needed to be more aggressive in our pushback against what’s coming out of Washington,” he said, arguing Democrats should have rejected more of Trump’s political appointees.

Mejia, a longtime Democratic activist who served as the national political director for independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, said she was drawn to enter the race after Democrats ended last year’s government shutdown without securing an extension of the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax subsidies.

“Like many Democrats in this moment, I am not only appalled at MAGA, at Trumpism, at Donald Trump’s administration – their overreach, their corruption, their blatant hypocrisy – but I’m also ticked off at my own Democratic leadership,” she said.

Mejia has solidified her position in the progressive lane with endorsements from Sanders, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others. But she has trailed on the money front – she’s sixth in fundraising, well behind Malinowski and Gill.

“What I hope we will see on Thursday, is regular, everyday voters reclaiming the drive, tone, tenor, focus of our own party,” Mejia said.

A former congressman’s background becomes a benefit and a liability

Malinowski, who flipped New Jersey’s 7th District during the 2018 wave but lost his 2022 reelection bid, has argued he’s the only who has already pushed back on Trump in Congress. He would retain his seniority in Congress.

“I think voters have been drawn to our campaign because I can credibly argue that I’ll be effective on the day I’m sworn in,” he said in an interview.

His background as a former congressman has been both a benefit and a minor liability. He has led the field in fundraising and has broader name recognition thanks to his years as a swing-district lawmaker. But he’s also been subject to attack ads over his failure to properly disclose his stock trades while in office. United Democracy Project, a group aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has spent more than $1.7 million on TV ads attacking Malinowski, according to AdImpact.

The group has highlighted his stock trading and sought to tie him to Trump, pointing to his vote for a bipartisan 2019 omnibus spending bill that include funding for ICE. Malinowski has been vocal about what he called the agency’s “unlawful and despicable” enforcement operations, and called the attack “outrageous.”

“It’s our goal to build the largest bipartisan pro-Israel majority in Congress,” said Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for the United Democracy Project. “We think there are better candidates than Tom Malinowski on the US-Israel relationship in the NJ-11 race.”

Gill has also laid into Malinowski over the disclosure issue, arguing the controversy contributed to his 2022 loss to Republican Tom Kean Jr. The county commissioner, who launched his own campaign outside his childhood home in the district, has also knocked Malinowski for switching districts.

“I’m drawing a contrast,” Gill said. “Those are decisions that he made as a member of Congress that cost us that seat and that’s why I have an issue, quite frankly, with the nature of this candidacy, where he deserted and left the people that he represented in District 7.”

While in office, Malinowski described his failure to disclose his trades on time as “a matter of carelessness on my part, which I regret and take full responsibility for,” according to a report from the former Office of Congressional Ethics. The House Ethics Committee’s investigation into his stock trade disclosures ended when Malinowski left office and would need to be reopened by the committee to continue.

Malinowski said the attacks on stock trading Gill has raised in this race mirror those Republicans made against him in 2022. He also raised concerns about the late infusion of spending against him, prompted by AIPAC’s opposition to his willingness to place conditions on aid to Israel. The former congressman previously had the group’s support.

“Their goal is to intimidate the Democratic Party,” he said. “If it works here, we’re going to see the same play in multiple other Democratic primaries. If we stop it here, the party will be more immune.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.