Did Analilia Mejia Defeat Two Pro Israel Dems In Primary?

Being against the status quo and Israel is good business.

The Democratic Party is gonna learn today. If you want to keep supporting Israel, prepare for a primary challenge. And this time, I am backing the anti-genocide and anti-Israel candidates.

This is war.

In the special primary election to replace Mikie Sherrill who became New Jersey governor is coming to a conclusion. It appears the candidate that opposes Israel may end up winning.

Activist Analilia Mejia is expected to win. So far the race is too close to call.

The race in New Jersey between a onetime political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders and a former congressman was too early to call Thursday, in a special House Democratic primary for a seat that was vacated after Sherill was elected governor.

Decision Desk HQ is retracting its projection in the NJ-11 Democratic primary.

We have deleted the race projection tweet.

At the time of our initial projection, all absentee and early vote had been recorded in all three counties, and we had 66/240 precincts in Essex County… pic.twitter.com/u3OjPUgUHd

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) February 6, 2026

pic.twitter.com/OvQNWKX7xE

— Analilia Mejia for NJ (@AnaliliaForNJ) February 6, 2026

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski started election night with a significant lead over Analilia Mejia, based largely on early results from mail-in ballots. The margin narrowed as results from votes cast that day were tallied.

With more than 61,000 votes counted, Mejia led Malinowski by 486, or less than 1 percentage point.

All three counties in the district report some mail-in ballots yet to be processed. Also, mail-in ballots postmarked by election day can arrive as late as Wednesday and still be counted.

Tom Malinowski is trailing by less than 1,000 votes at the time of this posting. Still a supporter of Israel, he called for pause on Israel defense spending.

Malinowski did better than Mejia among the mail-in ballots already counted in all three counties, leaving the outcome of the race uncertain.

The Democratic winner will face Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway, who was unopposed in the Republican primary, on April 16.

Malinowski served two terms in the House before losing a bid for reelection in a different district in 2022. He had the endorsement of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim, who has built support among progressive groups.

Mejia, a former head of the Working Families Alliance in the state and political director for Sanders during his 2020 presidential run, had the Vermont independent senator’s endorsement as well as that of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York. She also worked in President Joe Biden’s Labor Department as deputy director of the women’s bureau.

Both Malinowski and Mejia were well ahead of the next-closest candidates: Brendan Gill, an elected commissioner in Essex County who has close ties to former Gov. Phil Murphy; and Tahesha Way, who served as lieutenant governor and secretary of state for two terms under Murphy until last month.

Pro Israel groups supported former lieutenant governor Tanesha Way. She made the gamble and lost. She is in a distant third place.

The other candidates were John Bartlett, Zach Beecher, J-L Cauvin, Marc Chaaban, Cammie Croft, Dean Dafis, Jeff Grayzel, Justin Strickland and Anna Lee Williams.

The district covers parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey, including some of New York City’s wealthier suburbs.

The special primary and April general election will determine who serves the remainder of Sherrill’s term, which ends next January. There will be a regular primary in June and general election in November for the next two-year term.

Sherrill, also a Democrat, represented the district for four terms after her election in 2018. She won despite the region’s historical loyalty to the GOP, a dynamic that began to shift during Trump’s first term.

Let's make this clear. Race, gender, sexuality and religion does not matter anymore.

It is about who can deliver to the people and who can't. 

Israel has gotten away with a lot of things. This election, Democrats better abandon it or face an onslaught of primary challenges and/or depressed turnout. 

We are not going back to paraphrase former vice president Kamala Harris.

No more status quo politics and Israel first.