NJ special election pits GOP moderate against AOC, Sanders-backed progressive

RANDOLPH, N.J. — As he works to flip a vacant U.S. House seat in a blue-leaning district in northern New Jersey, Republican Joe Hathaway is not shy about pointing out where he disagrees with President Donald Trump, even as he charges that his Democratic rival is too far to the left.

“I’m going to call balls and strikes in this race. I’m not going to be a rubber stamp for anybody,” Hathaway said in a Fox News Digital interview this week, when asked about Trump.

Hathaway is facing off against Democrat Analilia Mejia, who is backed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of neighboring New York, in Thursday’s special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District. The winner will succeed Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic representative who stepped down from Congress in November after winning New Jersey’s gubernatorial election.

Thursday’s special election comes as the GOP clings to a fragile House majority, and would relish the opportunity to flip a suburban district Sherrill won by 15 points in her 2024 re-election and carried by roughly the same margin in last year’s gubernatorial election.

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A confident Hathaway said, “I think we are going to have a broad coalition come together to choose common sense over socialism in this race.”

Mejia, a progressive organizer who served as national political director on the 2020 Sanders presidential campaign, pulled off an upset in the February Democratic primary as she narrowly edged out more moderate rival former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a field of 11 candidates. While Mejia was the clear choice of the party’s left flank, the rest of the field appeared to divide the more moderate and center-left vote.

Her victory was another boost for the left against the establishment after democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sent shock waves across the nation with his Democratic primary victory in June 2025.

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Hathaway, a former Randolph Township mayor and current council member who was uncontested for the GOP congressional nomination, emphasized that the choice for voters is “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.”

Mejia recently appeared at a town hall with Malinowski and this past weekend teamed up with Sherrill on the campaign trail, as she aims to unite Democrats, who enjoy a sizable registration advantage in the district.

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

Hathaway claimed that Mejia is now trying “to hide from that a little bit in 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 part of the district’s electorate, and Hathaway, in the only debate in the special election showdown, claimed Mejia was antisemitic, noting that she has said Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

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

Hathaway said, “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 on the importance of this race and how they are not aligned with Mejia….and her platform.”

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Mejia has pledged to “protect the rights of Jewish constituents,” and has said her criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza should not be conflated with antisemitism.

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

Mejia last 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 move a “heel turn.”

Hathaway, as he aims to win over independent and Democrats, is pointing out where he agrees, and disagrees, with Trump, who lost the district by eight points in his 2024 presidential election victory.

Republican congressional candidate Joe Hathaway speaks with voters at the Randolph Diner, on April 13, 2026, in Randolph, New Jersey. (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 said.

“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 move last year to terminate billions of federal dollars for the Gateway Project, which is funding a new train tunnel under the Hudson River connecting New Jersey and New York, and the president’s plans to cut roughly 1,000 jobs and nearly $1 billion in funding for an Army base located 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 said.

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Hathaway said his message to independents and Democrats is, “even if you’ve never voted for a Republican before, you got the chance to test drive one for the next six months. Send me to Washington. Let me prove to you I’m going to do what I say  I’m going to do, and that’s how we’re going to build the coalition to win.”

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

Campaign signs for Republican candidate Joe Hathaway and Democrat Analilia Mejia in New Jersey’s 11th District congressional election, in Randolph, New Jersey, on April 13, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

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

“Democrats as a whole do not seem interested in finding common ground with Trump,” he said as he predicted that most voters in the special election will be strong partisans. “Democratic turnout is through the roof and Republican turnout is depressed at this point.”

Cassino noted that “right now national politics drives everything. We say all politics is local. Today, unfortunately, all politics is national.”

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Mejia, meanwhile, has 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 social media post.