Sanders and AOC-backed Democrat wins New Jersey special election seat

Republicans fell brief of their bid to flip a vacant U.S. House seat in a blue-leaning district in northern New Jersey.

Democrat Analilia Mejia, who was backed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of neighboring New York, defeated GOP candidate Joe Hathaway in Thursday’s special election in New Jersey’s eleventh Congressional District, the Associated Press experiences.

With her victory, Mejia will fill the ultimate eight months of the time period of Gov. Mike Sherrillthe Democratic consultant who stepped down from Congress in November after successful New Jersey’s gubernatorial election.

The special election got here because the GOP clings to a fragile House majority. Republicans would have relished the chance to choose up the seat, however they confronted an uphill climb to flip the suburban district Sherrill gained by 15 factors in her 2024 re-election and carried by roughly the identical margin in final 12 months’s gubernatorial election.

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Mejia, a progressive organizer who served as nationwide political director on the 2020 Sanders presidential marketing campaign, pulled off an upset within the February Democratic major, narrowly edging out extra reasonable rival former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a discipline of 11 candidates. While Mejia was the clear selection of the occasion’s left flank, the remainder of the sphere appeared to divide the reasonable and center-left vote.

Her victory was one other increase for the left towards the institution after democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani despatched shock waves throughout the nation along with his Democratic major victory in June 2025.

Hathaway, a former Randolph Township mayor and present council member who was uncontested for the GOP congressional nomination, informed Fox News Digital that the selection for voters was “between a common sense, practical independent leader who’s gotten things done at the local level in New Jersey and knows the issues, contrasted with someone who’s running on pure ideology, far left-wing ideology, Squad-backed ideology.”

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Analilia Mejia secured the Democratic Party nomination in a special election to search out out who will take over newly elected New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s vacant House seat. (Heather Khalifa/Bloomberg by way of Getty Images)

Mejia just lately appeared at a city corridor with Malinowski and, on Sunday, teamed up with Sherrill on the marketing campaign path as she aimed to unite Democrats, who get pleasure from a large registration benefit within the district.

Hathaway claimed that Mejia was attempting “to hide a little bit” from “some of her rhetoric, because she knows that those policies are completely out of touch, but it’s not fooling voters. It’s certainly not fooling us.”

Jewish voters make up a key a part of the district’s citizens, and Hathaway, in the one debate within the special election, claimed Mejia was anti-Semitic, noting that she has stated Israel dedicated genocide in Gaza.

“She blamed Israel for the assaults by Hamas on October 7,” Hathaway stated. “I think Jewish individuals across this district, Republican or Democrat, are very afraid of this kind of rhetoric.”

Hathaway stated, “I’ve spoken to more members of the Jewish community who have told me they’ve never voted for a Republican in their life, who are going to vote for me in this race. I mean, that shows you where the Jewish community is about the importance of this race and how they are not aligned with Mejia… and her platform.”

Mejia pledged to “protect the rights of Jewish constituents,” and stated his criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza shouldn’t be conflated with antisemitism.

In a press release to Fox News Digital, Mejia stated, “Joe Hathaway’s inability to distinguish between criticism of a government or government official and bigotry is troubling and disgusting in equal measure.”

Mejia final week wrote that she was “honored” after being endorsed by the liberal pro-Israel political group J Street PAC. But her acceptance of the endorsement triggered pushback on the left, with the North Jersey Democratic Socialists of America calling her transfer a “heel turn.”

Hathaway, as he labored to win over independents and Democrats, identified the place he agrees and disagrees with President donald trumpwho misplaced the district by eight factors within the 2024 presidential election.

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Campaign indicators for Republican candidate Joe Hathaway and Democrat Analilia Mejia within the NJ-11 special congressional election, in Randolph, NJ, April 13, 2026 (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

“I’m always going to do what’s right for this district first. And I’ve been clear: If the president’s going to do things that are good for the district, increasing the SALT cap deduction, putting money back in people’s pockets, especially New Jersey, affordability is so tough here. If we’re doing things like border security, reducing fentanyl deaths like we’ve seen in our community. Those are good things. I support those policies,” Hathaway stated.

“But on the other hand, if the president’s going to do things that aren’t in the best interest of our district, it’s my job to push back, and that’s exactly what I’ve done,” he spotlighted.

Hathaway pointed to Trump’s transfer final 12 months to terminate billions of federal {dollars} for the Gateway Project, which is funding a brand new practice tunnel below the Hudson River connecting New Jersey and New York, and the president’s plans to chop roughly 1,000 jobs and practically $1 billion in funding for an Army base situated in New Jersey.

“I’m going to call balls and strikes in this race. I’m not going to be a rubber stamp for anybody,” Hathaway stated.

And Hathaway predicted, “I think we have the right math, the right bipartisan coalition to come together to win this thing on April 16.”

Republican congressional candidate Joe Hathaway speaks with voters on the Randolph Diner April 13, 2026, in Randolph, NJ (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

But Hathaway got here up brief, given the tough political local weather going through Republicans and the normal headwinds for the occasion in energy.

Mejia repeatedly tied Hathaway to Trump and Republicans in Congress.

“MAGA Republicans are driving up everyday costs with extreme policies my opponent supports. Healthcare and critical programs are being gutted just to fund tax breaks for the ultra-rich. We can’t afford another vote for Trump in Congress,” she wrote in a current social media submit.

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Dan Cassino, a Fairleigh Dickinson University political science professor and pollster, known as Hathaway’s hopes of capturing crossover Democrats “a pipe dream.”

“Democrats as a whole do not seem interested in finding common ground with Trump,” Cassino stated on Monday, as he predicted that the majority voters within the special election can be sturdy partisans. “Democratic turnout is through the roof and Republican turnout is depressed at this point.”