By Matt Rooney
There was high drama on Thursday night in the special NJ-11 primary to select a successor to New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill. With 91% reporting after 1:00 a.m. on Friday, Analilia Mejia led former NJ-07 Congressman Tom Malinowski by less than 500 votes. Former Murphy Lieutenant Governor Tanesha Way and Essex Commissioner Brendan Gill trailed distantly. Nine other Democrats barely registered.
Would the result have been different if county lines still existed? Interestingly, Gill was in fourth place in his home base of Essex County despite Machine backing and the endorsement of his former boss, Phil Murphy.
Both Decision Desk and NJ Globe retracted early projections of a Malinowski victory.
“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 (expected to be Analilia Mejia strongest) that had reported election day vote & two election day vote drops in Morris County (expected to be Thomas Malinowski’s strongest),” Decision Desk explained. “Malinowski had a 4,900 raw vote lead, and the margin he was losing the election day vote in Essex combined with the margin he was winning the election day vote in Morris, provided him a sizable cushion. Even if Mejia’s projected margins were doubled, Malinowski was still projected to win by more than 1,000 votes.”
“As the night progressed, margins in Morris County quickly tilted toward Mejia; Mejia began winning drops by 20%-30%, representing a swing of 65 points compared to the absentee vote,” the popular race calling site continued.
The ultimate winner will face-off against GOP Mayor Joe Hathaway of Randolph Township.
