Analilia Mejia and Tom Malinowski locked in a tight Democratic primary for US House from New Jersey

By Molly English, Arit John, Kathryn Squyres, CNN

(CNN) — The Democratic special primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District remains too early to call with progressive Analilia Mejia and former US Rep. Tom Malinowski locked in a tight race.

Mejia was slightly ahead of Malinowski at the close of counting on Election Night. But with nearly all election day ballots counted, the race could come down to uncounted mail ballots.

According to reports late Thursday from the counties in the district, upwards of 1,000 are already in hand and remain to be counted. Additional ballots can be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and arrive before Wednesday.

Trailing the top two vote-getters are former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way and Essex County commissioner Brendan Gill, among a ballot of more than a dozen Democratic primary candidates.

“I do think that we have emerged victorious, but I want to first make sure that every voter’s voice is heard,” Mejia said at a press conference Friday morning.

Malinowski’s campaign stressed that there are still votes coming in.

“Given the volume of votes still to be reported and the way mail-in ballots have broken throughout this race, we remain confident heading into the continued count,” his campaign said. “Every vote deserves to be counted, and we look forward to a complete and accurate tally that reflects the full voice of NJ-11 voters.”

Whoever wins will face Republican Randolph Township councilman Joe Hathaway, who ran unopposed, in the general election on April 16, and will be favored in a district that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly nine percentage points in 2024.

Thursday’s primary was seen as an early testing ground for the debates that will shape the Democratic push to retake the US House in this year’s midterms.

A win by Mejia, who served as political director on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, would be a major success for national progressive leaders who had backed her run. Malinowski, meanwhile, would be in position with a victory to return to the House four years after losing a bid for reelection.

Mejia, a longtime Democratic activist, solidified the progressive lane with an endorsement from independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, having served as political director on Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. She 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.

Malinowski represented New Jersey’s 7th District for two terms before losing in 2022 after his seat became more Republican in redistricting.

The former diplomat leveraged his profile from his first stint in the House to lead the field in fundraising. But he was also subject to attack ads over his failure to properly disclose his stock trades while in office. And he faced more than $1.9 million in negative advertising from a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to AdImpact. While many of the ads hit him for a vote connected to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding, the group had made it clear they felt Malinowski’s openness to conditioning aid to Israel was not sufficiently supportive of the nation.

Either candidate’s success would be a blow to the pro-Israel lobby. While Malinowski previously had AIPAC’s support, Mejia has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza and the organization’s political spending.

She denounced AIPAC’s efforts to undermine Malinowski’s campaign Friday, and said she was glad New Jersey voters could see the group’s tactics so the state could reject them in future elections.

“I was disgusted that they were going after Tom Malinowski, but I didn’t need to see the assault to know the practices that they employ, and to be against it,” she said.

United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated group that funded ads against Malinowski, issued a statement Friday.

“The outcome in NJ-11 was an anticipated possibility, and our focus remains on who will serve the next full term in Congress,” the group said. “UDP will be closely monitoring dozens of primary races, including the June NJ-11 primary, to help ensure pro-Israel candidates are elected to Congress.”

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