11 Democrats vie in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District

Avram Reisman | 

Update: On February 10, Tom Malinowski conceded this race to Analilia Mejia. Mejia led with 29% of the vote, compared to Malinowski’s 28%. The gap between the two frontrunners is under 900 votes – about 30 times less than the 27,500 voters who picked another candidate. With ranked choice voting, those voters could have made their voices heard in the choice between the frontrunners.

On Thursday, Democrats in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District will choose their nominee to succeed former Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who resigned the seat in November after she was elected governor. With a crowded field of 11 candidates, the winner is likely to win with a small plurality – and could even win with less than 10% of votes. (Republicans are also holding a primary on Thursday, but only one candidate is running.)

In NJ-11 and other contests, ranked choice voting (RCV) would ensure nominees have majority support without sacrificing voter choice.

In the most recent midterm elections (2022), 120 candidates advanced from U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and statewide primary elections with less than 50% of the vote.

Choose-one elections cause problems for voters

More choice in elections should be a good thing. But when fields are crowded, and voters can only choose one candidate, it’s common for someone to win without support from most of their constituents.

Voters are left in a difficult position – trying to guess the most viable candidates to avoid  “throwing away” their vote on a long shot. In a race like NJ-11, with little public polling and no consensus choice among political leaders, this task is especially challenging. As the local news site Morristown Green put it:

Voters have only a narrow window to learn who is running, what they stand for, and how viable their campaigns really are. Adding to the challenge is the absence of independent public polling. In most races, public polls help voters answer a basic question: Does my preferred candidate have a realistic path to victory, or should I reconsider my choice?

Notably, reporting on the New Jersey race shows that support is divided along geographic lines as well as ideological ones:

  • Former Rep. Tom Malinowski is backed by the Morris County Democrats and New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim. Malinowski represented parts of Morris County when he was in Congress.
  • Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill is supported by the Essex County Democrats and former Gov. Phil Murphy.
  • The Passaic County Democrats endorsed two candidates from the county – former Lieutenant Gov. Tahesha Way and County Commissioner John Bartlett. In an RCV race, voters could rank both of these candidates; in this contest, the dual endorsement is less useful. Way also has support from the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, the Collective PAC, and the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association. 
  • Analilia Mejia, former head of the New Jersey Working Families Party, is supported by progressive politicians like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

Elected with a fraction of a fraction of the vote

The general election in New Jersey’s 11th District is considered safe for Democrats, meaning the Democratic nominee is all but certain to become the district’s representative. If the nominee does not win a majority of votes in the primary, the representative will effectively have been chosen by just a fraction of a fraction of voters.

Plurality primary winners can also be bad for parties: Research from Northwestern University and FairVote finds that plurality primary winners are 10.4 percentage points less likely to win competitive general elections than majority primary winners. 

In other words, when a party advances a plurality winner to a competitive general election, that party harms its chance of winning the race. 

Two nearby congressional districts could also see low-plurality winners in New Jersey’s regularly scheduled June primaries. Eight Democrats are running in NJ-7, which is considered a toss-up seat; and 17 Democrats are running in NJ-12, where the Democratic nominee will be favored. (The Republican primaries in both districts are less crowded.)

The solution: ranked choice voting

New Jersey can promote majority rule and voter choice by adopting ranked choice voting. By allowing voters to rank several candidates, RCV prevents like-minded candidates from splitting the vote, and ensures winners have broad support from voters. RCV also makes campaigns more positive, giving candidates the option to form coalitions and campaign on shared values – including the “cross-endorsements” we saw in nearby New York City just last year. 

Notably, support for RCV is already growing throughout the Garden State. Six New Jersey cities, including two in the 11th Congressional District – Maplewood and South Orange – passed ordinances asking the state legislature to authorize RCV for local elections. And when Morris County Democrats made their endorsement in the 11th District race, they used ranked choice voting to pick a consensus nominee. Chairwoman Darcy Draeger said that:

Ranked choice voting allowed us to select the person with the broadest support across our diverse membership.

Voter Choice NJ is leading efforts to bring RCV to the Garden State; visit their website to learn more.