Malinowski concedes to Mejia in Democratic House special primary in New Jersey

Former congressman Tom Malinowski conceded Tuesday to challenger Analilia Mejia in the closely watched Democratic special election U.S. House primary to fill New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s vacated congressional seat.  

“I congratulate Analilia Mejia on her hard won victory in the NJ-11 special primary. I look forward to supporting her in the April general election,” Malinowski said in a statement.

The Associated Press has not yet made a call in the race. Last Thursday, Mejia led by a narrow margin as polls closed in the district. Some mail-in ballots remain to be counted.

The Democratic nominee will face Randolph Township Mayor Joe Hathaway, the only Republican to run, in April’s special general election to replace now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill. Sherrill resigned from her seat shortly after winning the gubernatorial race last November.

The special primary contest is one of the first elections in the 2026 midterm cycle where Democrats hope to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with President Trump’s second-term agenda. After losing the White House and the Senate in 2024, the party earned numerous victories in special elections and saw a surge of support in the 2025 November general election, including Sherrill’s landslide victory.

Malinowski’s comeback bid was supported by New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim, who touted the two-term congressman’s experience.

“Tom Malinowski knows the House of Representatives. He knows Congress. He knows New Jersey,” Kim said in a video. “He knows how to be able to stand up to Donald Trump, and that’s what I need right now is someone there as a partner with me in the Capitol.”

Malinowski represented a neighboring congressional seat from 2018-2022, but lost to Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. after redistricting added more Republicans into his district.

Malinowski’s prior experience in Congress was an important factor in the leadup to this race, says Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

“With a short runway of a special election — name recognition, money, experience — all can matter,” he said.

But Mejia, director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, was endorsed by several progressive groups and politicians including Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Locally, she received the endorsement of Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey’s largest city.

“In a moment of rising authoritarianism, of economic insecurity, of state-sanctioned violence, any old blue just won’t do,” Meijia said at the event with Sanders. “If you send weak sauce to Congress, we will get weak sauce back.”

Mejia has also called for the abolition of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

“You can’t reform that. It’s not fixable,” she said at a January event at William Paterson University. “Get it out. Kick it over. It is done. Forget it.”

Immigration enforcement became a dominant theme of discussion among candidates in the primary, heightened by the fatal shootings of Nicole Macklin Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minnesota.

The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds 65% of Americans feel that ICE has “gone too far” in enforcing immigration laws, with a growing number of independents and Democrats sharing that sentiment.

For his part, Malinowski faced attacks from a super PAC aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) over a 2019 vote for a bipartisan Department of Homeland Security funding bill while in Congress in 2019, but has been outspoken about the Trump administration’s recent immigration tactics and a desire to “defund ICE’s brutality.”

In the statement congratulating Mejia Tuesday he decried the “massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads during the last three weeks.”

AIPAC has not yet responded to a request for comment.