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A progressive candidate backed by champions of the left, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is close to pulling off an upset victory with votes still being counted in a Democratic congressional primary for a blue-leaning seat in New Jersey.
Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer, has a slight lead — nearly 900 votes out of more than 63,000 votes counted — ahead of former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski in the battle for their party’s nomination in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.
Mejia and Malinowski are the leaders among a field of 11 Democratic candidates in the race to fill the seat left vacant after now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill stepped down after winning the November 2025 gubernatorial election in the Garden State.
The results in the primary showdown are being closely watched by the political world as an early testing ground in the debate between progressives versus the more mainstream elements of the Democratic Party.
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And a victory by Mejia, who worked as national political director on Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, would be the latest boost for the left against the establishment since now-New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, sent shockwaves across the nation with his Democratic primary victory in June 2025.
“She stands for a progressive populist economic agenda,” progressive leader Rep. Ro Khanna of California emphasized Friday in a social media post. “She is the future!”
And Mejia, speaking to supporters on primary night, highlighted that “we have to rebuild our party, we have to rebuild what is happening in our nation. We have to reclaim our democracy. We know that our economy is rigged to suit the billionaires.”
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Here’s a closer look at where Mejia stands on some key issues.
Immigration enforcement
During her primary campaign, Mejia took aim at President Donald Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration, and has called for scrapping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency most visible in the aggressive tactics used in the administration’s massive deportation effort.
“I say abolish ICE now,” Mejia said on the campaign trail in January. “You can’t reform it. It’s not fixable. Get it out.”
Speaking with reporters Friday about her overperformance in the primary, Mejia gave credit to her stance on immigration in the wake of backlash against the Trump administration following the fatal shootings in Minnesota by federal agents of two U.S. citizens protesting immigration operations.
“I think the fact that I was bold and unafraid to speak the truth was incredibly important,” she told reporters. “I think voters feel that they want to have a representative that actually represents them, and they cannot watch what’s happening in Minnesota, what happened in Chicago, what happened in California, what happened in Morristown across this district.”
Supreme Court
Mejia, like many on the left, has railed against rulings by the conservative-dominated court.
“The Supreme Court has been captured by right-wing radicals who care more about doing Trump’s bidding than the rule of law,” Mejia charges on her campaign website.
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She supports “articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Alito” for what she says is “their corruption and conflicts of interest.”
Mejia also backs “term limits for newly appointed Supreme Court justices, a binding code of ethics with real enforcement for all federal judges.”
And Mejia says she would support “expanding the courts if necessary to restore balance.”
Student loan debt
On her campaign website, Mejia states “we’re going to cancel all student loan debt.”
And she pledges that she’ll “fight to make college tuition free at community colleges and trade schools for everyone.”
Taxes and minimum wage
As part of her “economy for everyone agenda,” Mejia argues, “If you work 40 hours a week, you should make at least $40,000 a year, and you shouldn’t pay a dime in federal taxes on that first $40,000.”
And she highlights that she helped lead the fight in New Jersey to “win the $15 minimum wage.”
If she makes it to Congress, Mejia says “with the cost of living rising every day, it’s time to raise the minimum wage at the national level to $25/hour.”
Israel
Malinowski, an assistant secretary of state in former President Barack Obama’s administration who later represented a neighboring congressional district in northern New Jersey from 2018 to 2022 before losing re-election, was considered the front-runner in the race heading into primary day.
But Malinowski was the target of a slew of attack ads put out by a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which opposed Malinowski because he said he supports conditions on aid to Israel.
The AIPAC-aligned super PAC United Democracy Project dished out more than $2.3 million to take aim at Malinowski, even though AIPAC had previously supported Malinowski in his past congressional elections.
But the strategy may backfire, because Mejia is much tougher on Israel than Malinowski.
Mejia was the only candidate in the race who raised her hand at a forum last month when asked if they agreed with human rights groups who charge Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
Mejia was boosted by the support on the left. Sanders headlined a virtual rally for her on the eve of the primary.
And besides Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, she was also endorsed by a large list of other progressive leaders, including Khanna, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Rep. Pramilla Jayapal of Washington State, the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
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The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) a leading group on the left, said in a statement that “Analilia Mejia’s momentous showing proves that voters, when given a choice, want Democrats with an inspiring vision who will boldly challenge powerful interests on behalf of working families.”
PCCC co-founder Adam Green, a New Jersey native who knocked doors for Mejia and spoke at a rally with Mejia and Sanders on primary eve, added that primary voters “made clear they want Democrats who will shake up a broken political and economic system – not just be anti-Trump.”
While Mejia was the clear choice of the left flank of the party’s base, the rest of the field appeared to divide the more moderate and center-left vote.
The primary winner will face off with Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway, the only Republican to file for the special election, which will be held on April 16.
Hathaway will be considered the underdog in the race, in the suburban district in northern New Jersey.
Sherrill won re-election in the district in 2024 by 15 points, the same margin by which she carried the district in November’s gubernatorial showdown.
But then-Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by just eight points in the 2024 presidential election, giving the GOP some hopes of possibly flipping the seat.
The special election comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House of Representatives.
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