{"id":199520,"date":"2026-02-07T11:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T11:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/new-jersey-democratic-primary-contest-for-house-seat-on-knife-edge-as-votes-trickle-in-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T11:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T11:47:07","slug":"new-jersey-democratic-primary-contest-for-house-seat-on-knife-edge-as-votes-trickle-in-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/new-jersey-democratic-primary-contest-for-house-seat-on-knife-edge-as-votes-trickle-in-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey Democratic primary contest for House seat on knife-edge as votes trickle in – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Progressive Analilia Mejia maintains slim lead after votes seemed to be swinging for Tom Malinowski
US politics live \u2013 latest updates<\/a>
The outcome of a special Democratic primary to fill a US House of Representatives<\/a> seat representing northern New Jersey<\/a> was on a knife-edge on Friday, after a progressive challenger took a surprise lead over a former Democratic congressman who initially appeared to have won the nomination.
The election held on Thursday in New Jersey\u2019s 11th congressional district was prompted by Democrat Mikie Sherrill\u2019s resignation last year after she was elected governor. Eleven Democrats vied to replace her, and on Thursday evening, Tom Malinowski, who represented a neighboring district in the House from 2019 through 2022, took an early lead.
The Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, quickly congratulated Malinowski, but as the ballot count continued, Analilia Mejia, a progressive activist and former political director for Bernie Sanders, overtook the former congressman.
The Associated Press has not yet called the race, but Mejia was leading Malinowski by 488 votes on Friday morning, with more than 61,000 ballots counted.
Mejia avoided calling herself the winner, instead telling a press conference: \u201cI do think that we have emerged victorious, but I want to first make sure that every voter\u2019s voice is heard.\u201d
A victory by Mejia in a state where party leadership has traditionally favored institutional figures could give a boost to Democrats\u2019 progressive wing ahead of the November midterm elections, in which the party hopes to win back control of the House and Senate.
Reacting to Mejia\u2019s momentum, the Texas congressman Greg Casar, who leads the Congressional Progressive caucus, said: \u201cOver and over, voters are sending Democrats a message: we need fighters who will go to the mat for working people.\u201d
The former leader of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, Mejia entered the contest as a progressive challenger and benefited from high-profile endorsements from Sanders and other leftwing lawmakers including Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Her campaign emphasized<\/a> grassroots organizing, economic justice and a rejection of what she framed as establishment politics.
When Mejia campaigned in January alongside Sanders at William Paterson University in New Jersey, she said<\/a>: \u201cIn a moment of rising authoritarianism, of economic insecurity, of state-sanctioned violence, any old blue just won\u2019t do.
\u201cIf you send weak sauce to Congress, we will get weak sauce back,\u201d she added.
Malinowski picked up an endorsement<\/a> from one of the state\u2019s two Democratic senators, Andy Kim, but faced what Federal Election Commission filings say was more than $2.3m of negative advertisements paid for by the United Democracy Project, a Super Pac linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for the Super Pac, told the New York Times<\/a> that the group opposed Malinowski because he has recently spoken in favor of conditioning aid to Israel. \u201cThat\u2019s not a pro-Israel position,\u201d he said.
In an interview with the Hill<\/a>, Malinowski, a former diplomat and human rights advocate who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, defended his stance, saying: \u201cWhat Aipac seems to be demanding is just blind, blank check support for the current [Israeli] prime minister.
\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s what most pro-Israel Jewish Americans want. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s [what] most Israelis want,\u201d he said.
The winner of the Democratic primary will advance to face the Randolph Township mayor, Joe Hathaway, the sole Republican running in the state\u2019s special general election on 16 April.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Progressive Analilia Mejia maintains slim lead after votes seemed to be swinging for Tom MalinowskiUS politics live \u2013 latest updatesThe outcome of a special Democratic primary to fill a US House of Representatives seat representing northern New Jersey was on a knife-edge on Friday, after a progressive challenger took a surprise lead over a former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":199521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-199520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}