Dem
47
GOP
53
Yesterday, the folks in the Garden State finally held the election needed to fill the U.S. House seat, NJ-11, that was left vacant when Mikie Sherrill (D) was elected governor. Here is the headline from The Hill:
Are we crazy, or does that imply it was a nail-biter? Like maybe the Republican was ahead for most of the night, and the Democrat came back to eke out a victory? Certainly, when we saw that headline, we had not yet seen the actual results, and we began thinking about what might explain a close election, given that all these other special elections in blue (and sometimes even in red) districts have been blowouts. But, in fact, it was not close. Democrat Analilia Mejia crushed Republican Joe Hathaway by just shy of 20 points, 59.6% to 40%. With 6% of the vote still uncounted, the final margin could end up anywhere between 19 and 20 points. We'll call it 19.5 for purposes of this item.
NJ-11 is D+5, so the Democrat here ostensibly outperformed the fundamentals of the district by 14.5 points. However, Donald Trump tends to screw up almost everything, and that includes the PVI calculations, which often make the Republicans look stronger than they are, because he outperformed pretty much every member of the red team in 2024. Probably better to look at the recent electoral history of the district (asterisk indicates an incumbent):
| Year | Dem % | GOP % | Margin |
| 2016 | 38.9% | 58%* | R+19.1 |
| 2018 | 56.8% | 42.1% | D+14.7 |
| 2020 | 53.3%* | 46.7% | D+6.4 |
| 2022 | 59.0%* | 40.2% | D+18.8 |
| 2024 | 56.5%* | 41.8% | D+14.7 |
| 2026 (Special) | 59.6% | 40% | D+19.6 |
Those results are rather... erratic, including the rapid shift from "very red" to "very blue." Presumably, the district has been basically blue for years, the GOP only held it for as long as they did because Rodney Frelinghuysen (R) was a well-known (and apparently popular) incumbent.
Meanwhile, here is the table we ran yesterday, of special elections held for the current Congress, with yesterday's result added:
| Date | District | Dem margin 2024 | Dem margin special | Net |
| April 1, 2025 | FL-01 | -37 | -15 | D+22 |
| April 1, 2025 | FL-06 | -30 | -14 | D+16 |
| Sept. 9, 2025 | VA-11 | +34 | +50 | D+16 |
| Sept. 23, 2025 | AZ-07 | +22 | +40 | D+18 |
| Dec 2, 2025 | TN-07 | -22 | -9 | D+13 |
| Apr. 7, 2026 | GA-14 | -37 | -12 | D+25 |
| Apr. 16, 2026 | NJ-11 | +15 | +20 | D+5 |
So, Mejia's victory yesterday, while smashing, was not quite as smashing as the district's PVI might suggest. And it also featured the smallest blueward shift of the special elections thus far.
All of this said, she did win by nearly 20 points, and she scored the biggest win in NJ-11, by a member of either party, of the past decade. That means Mejia even outperformed an incumbent Sherrill, and by about 5 points as compared to 2024, which is the one election here that took place under the current district boundaries. So, we think you can still conclude that this result provides evidence of Democratic momentum.
That it was not a bigger win, like the others above, is presumably due to the peculiarities of the district and the race. Hathaway is not connected to Donald Trump in any meaningful way, and his platform is that of a Reagan Republican. Actually, truth be told, it's the platform of Bill Clinton. There are a lot of wealthy white suburbanites in that district, and some of them probably liked what they were hearing.
Meanwhile, the district has a sizable Jewish population, and Mejia's criticism of Israel was definitely a campaign issue (though note that she WAS endorsed by the liberal pro-Israel group JStreetPAC). Point being, we have no doubt that some Democratic-leaning voters took a pass on this one, or even voted Republican. And the larger point being that every House race is different. It's 435 House races, not one House race.
One other lesson before we leave this one behind: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. In the Democratic primary, AIPAC spent heavily on ads critical of then-frontrunner Tom Malinowski. He has actually been pretty pro-Israel in his career, but AIPAC wanted him to commit to being more pro-Israel. He did, but the attack ads did a lot of damage. Further, AIPAC is pretty radioactive with many voters these days, which is why the group has been using shell PACs in some races to obscure their involvement. Anyhow, the AIPAC ads did enough damage to Malinowski that Mejia was able to overtake him. And now, she's headed to Washington. That is definitely not what AIPAC wanted. Oops.
Next week, voters in Virginia and Florida will head to the polls to vote on some ballot measures, most notably the Virginia redistricting measure. Then, the calendar is pretty empty until May. (Z)