If Democrat Analilia Mejia secures a victory in next week’s election to fill the congressional seat once held by New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, it would mark another significant step forward for the progressive movement within the Democratic Party. This comes as the party continues to deliberate over its future direction ahead of the midterm elections.
Mejia, who served as a senior adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders during his 2020 presidential campaign, is largely anticipated to prevail over Republican candidate Joe Hathaway in the race for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, culminating on Thursday.
Her potential victory would be part of a growing trend where progressives have either won or made strong showings in several political contests.
Last month, progressive Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss emerged victorious in the Democratic primary for a House seat in Illinois, defeating both a moderate opponent and another liberal contender.
Biss succeeded over state Senator Laura Fine, who had taken a stance against placing conditions on aid to Israel, as well as overcoming far-left candidate and social media personality Kat Abughazaleh.
While Biss enjoyed the advantage of Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s (D-Ill.) endorsement for her seat, Abughazaleh notably came in a close second at 26 percent support to Biss’s 29 percent. Meanwhile, Fine received 20 percent.
Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D), who enjoyed the backing of Gov. JB Pritzker, also won her primary for the open Illinois Senate seat. Stratton said she wouldn’t support Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as leader and called for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In North Carolina, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, another progressive, last month lost her primary race to unseat Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.), but her defeat was a narrow one that also gave progressives hope.
Foushee defeated Allam by less than a point — a stark contrast with 2022, when the pair last ran for the seat. That year, Foushee placed first in the primary, defeating Allam, who earned second place, by 9 points.
Democrats note some of those wins were circumstantial.
Mejia’s surprise primary win was owed in part to the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) attacking a more moderate candidate, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), which in turn boosted Mejia.
New Jersey Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky, who worked on a super PAC supporting Malinowski’s bid, also noted that Stratton had ties to the Democratic establishment given Pritzker’s endorsement and financial support for her.
Still, Stratton had the endorsements of progressives such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.), too.
While some Democrats believe the primary results say less about voters preferring progressive candidates and more about those itching for a “fighter,” early elections nonetheless demonstrate that voters still have an appetite for liberal contenders.
“I agree that maybe voters … in this moment are clear that what they want is someone that will stand up for them, that will be unbossed and unbought in the halls of power, and that they will make decisions that really impact their lives for the better,” Mejia told The Hill in an interview.
“And it so happens that many progressives are positioned to deliver exactly that.”
Mejia defeated a crowded field in February for the Democratic nomination, which included Malinowski, Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill and former New Jersey Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way.
Mejia served in the Biden administration’s Labor Department and previously held the post of national political director for Sanders’s 2020 White House bid.
Beyond the involvement of AIPAC’s super PAC, Democrats credit Mejia with a strong campaign and the fact that the primary, dominated by attacks against Malinowski, left her relatively unscathed.
Now she’s poised to nab a seat in Congress, adding another progressive to the House Democratic Caucus.
Mejia acknowledged AIPAC’s role.
“I think that it is quite possible that AIPAC had an impact on Tom Malinowski,” Mejia said.
But she argued she mounted a campaign that had to overcome multiple well-known candidates in the process.
“I had to run the kind of program that moved people to not only pause and consider me to go from zero to 60 with me, from an unknown entity to someone that they were willing to support above, you know,10 other candidates,” she said.
The biggest progressive victory in the last year came in New York City in November.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani “is a once-in-a-generation talent who also ran against a deeply, deeply, deeply flawed candidate,” Roginsky said of his victory last year against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
She downplayed the ideological battles, saying: “I don’t think they’re looking at policy so much as somebody who’s going to stand up to Trump.”
California-based Democratic strategist Garry South agreed, suggesting Democratic voters are likely less familiar with the labels anyway.
“They do want a fighter,” South said, “and they do want someone to get in Trump’s face.”
“I’m not sure the average Democrat really knows or even cares” about the progressive label or its definition, South said.
While progressives have seen some success, it hasn’t translated to every race.
Former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) beat back progressive tech entrepreneur Junaid Ahmed for her old seat in Illinois’s 8th Congressional District.
The November elections of Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) in Virginia and Sherrill in New Jersey are also a testament to the fact that centrists have also enjoyed recent success. In fact, Sherrill defeated several prominent progressives in the Democratic primary for the spot.
Some Democratic groups have also expressed frustration over adopting progressive policy stances such as the “abolish ICE” movement, calling it toxic for voters.
“Every call to abolish ICE risks squandering one of the clearest opportunities in years to secure meaningful reform of immigration enforcement—while handing Republicans exactly the fight they want,” Sarah Pierce and Lanae Erickson of the center-left Third Way wrote in a memo in January.
While Georgia-based Democratic strategist Fred Hicks suggested recent wins across the board have had more to do with nominating candidates who reflected their communities and painted themselves as fighters against President Trump and less about progressivism, he noted that the economic environment has been conducive for more liberal candidates.
As housing prices and medical and energy costs rise, the “income inequality gap between the haves and have nots is really growing, and that creates the perfect environment for progressive candidates and progressivism,” Hicks said.
